Kirk Herbstreit is high on New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones having a bounceback season in 2023, but 98.5 The Sports Hub host Marc Bertrand doesn’t understand Herbstreit’s justification.
Herbstreit, in an interview with Pat McAfee last week, said Jones will have a Pro Bowl year and has the ability to command a pro-level offense. He pointed to his 2020 campaign at Alabama under then-offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian and how dominant that Crimson Tide team was with Jones under center.
Bertrand just felt like Kirk was just clinging to his bread and butter of being a college analyst. Talking about Mac’s time at Alabama is largely irrelevant now in Beetle’s eyes.
“Do you know what I think Kirk Herbstreit suffers from? Overvaluing college performances,” Bertrand said Monday on Zolak & Bertrand. “And you heard it in that clip! He suffers from that. he gets enamored with the guys who were great in college.”
Herbstreit further compared Jones to Joe Burrow, saying Jones’ season was largely overshadowed by Burrow’s just as dominant senior season at LSU. But even co-host Scott Zolak said it would’ve made more sense to look at both QBs and their NFL body of work.
“It’s not like we’ve seen them for a small sample of games,” Zolak said. “We’ve seen enough of both of them to know or at least at this point kind of ignore the college resume part of it. There are things you can draw on and think about, but if you’re using that as any kind of baseline as to what they’re going to be, you don’t have to. We’ve seen both of these guys in the NFL now.”
“What are we doing?” Bertrand responded. “That doesn’t enter the conversation. I don’t care that Mac was in Sark’s offense at Alabama four seasons ago. I don’t care. It has nothing to do with it.”
