Patriots OC: Mac Jones Made 'Very Uncharacteristic' Mistakes vs. Cowboys

New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones put together arguably the worst performance of his career in Sunday's loss to the Dallas Cowboys, but offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien downplayed the signal-caller's struggles while meeting with reporters on Tuesday.

"Some of the decisions that he made were very uncharacteristic of Mac," O'Brien said, per ESPN's Mike Reiss. "He's just trying to make a play, he's wanting to win, he's very competitive. I think you'll see a lot of improvement in Mac as we keep moving forward here."

O'Brien added that the most lopsided loss of Bill Belichick's head coaching career wasn't solely because of Jones' struggles:

"Mac is a battler. He is a competitor. When you play quarterback in this league, you have to limit the mistakes and you have to limit the bad games you have, obviously."

"We have to do a better job of coaching up some things with him. He has to do a better job of making good decisions for us. He knows that. He takes a lot of ownership -- you saw that, I think, after the game. He blames himself."

"The game wasn't lost because of one guy. The game was lost, on our part, because of how poorly we played and coached in the game. ... We have a lot of belief in Mac; I think he'll get back to doing it the way he knows how to do it."

The Cowboys blew out the Patriots 38-3 in a Week 4 matchup in which Jones completed just 12 of 21 passes for 150 yards and two interceptions before being pulled in favor of backup Bailey Zappe in the third quarter.

Through four games, Jones has completed 63.7 percent of his passes for 898 yards and five touchdowns against four interceptions. He has a quarterback rating of 44.7, which ranks 25th in the NFL and is behind the likes of Green Bay Packers' Jordan Love, Washington Commanders' Sam Howell and Arizona Cardinals' Joshua Dobbs.

While Jones hasn't played the best this season, he has also had to deal with a mediocre offensive line due to injuries. Jones has been sacked seven times and the Patriots have used four different offensive line configurations this year.

Despite Jones' struggles in Week 4, Belichick made it clear that the Alabama product is still New England's starting quarterback moving forward, though it's not like the franchise has many options.

The Patriots enter Week 5 with a 1-3 record and will look to bounce back against the New Orleans Saints at Gillette Stadium on Sunday.