Mac Jones explains why he’s hard on rookie receiver Demario Douglas

Patriots

“I can be hard on him and try to raise that standard because I know where he comes from.”

Mac Jones and Demario Douglas have known about each other for years, going back to their days growing up in Jacksonville, Florida.

Now that they’re teammates here in New England, the third-year quarterback and rookie receiver have an opportunity to develop together as the offense progresses.

Douglas received a tough lesson in Week 2, when the Patriots benched him after he fumbled the ball against Miami. Since then, he’s been carving out a bigger role for himself.

He’s gotten the bulk of the Patriots punt return duties with Marcus Jones out for the season. Douglas also posted a season-high 54 receiving yards in last week’s win against Buffalo.

“I’ve known him since I was little, and I know that he’s always fighting an uphill battle or whatever,” Mac Jones said. “He always talks bout his size and he’s always going to keep fighting. I know that about him. I can be hard on him and try to raise that standard because I know where he comes from. I know how hard he works and he’s going to bring it every week.”

Jones said the Patriots were able to put more pressure on Buffalo’s defense with Douglas moving around in pre-snap motion.

“Pop has done a good job,” Jones said. “I definitely enjoyed that part of the game. Just focused on, you know, how can we do that to get guys open and creating areas in the defense that become open because of that. You see that around the NFL, a lot of teams use motion, high school football it’s big, college football it’s been big for a while so I’m definitely enjoying watching other teams do it as well.”

Jones said he’s focused on building off of Sunday’s momentum, and doing the things that worked well repeatedly.

“Do it over and over again. Stick to the process,” Jones said. “Have expectations for yourself and don’t pay attention to the other expectations. That’s going to be big for me and it really starts at practice. We try to focus on how you can do it again and how you can stack good days together.”