Marcus Jones reminds us that football is better with two-way players (Overreactions)

The New England Patriots have been looking for an explosive playmaker on offense for years. You know, one of those short, fast guys who can outrun the defense.

It turns out the Patriots had one on the roster already. He just happens to play defense.

Bill Belichick is a mad scientist whose decision-making can defy all conventional knowledge. Just this year he chose to have defensive coach Matt Patricia start calling offensive plays and used a first-round pick to take an unknown draft prospect Chattanooga guard in Cole Strange.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

For most of this game, New England’s offense looked like a rusty old station wagon trying to drive up Mount Washington in a blizzard. Amid this, Belichick decided to do something crazy. He called a play where they threw the ball to their rookie cornerback who also happens to be an awesome punt returner.

It worked. It was awesome. It was a 48-yard touchdown to Marcus Jones. (You can watch the play here.)

It was also just the sort of thing football needs more of, especially when you’re an injury-plagued team that was trying to hang with a Super Bowl contender.

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The NFL needs more two-way players. Marcus Jones helped show why.

Jones caught two passes for the Patriots on Thursday night, making him one of the most-targeted players on the night.

The Patriots lost 24-10. But Jones’ 48-yard touchdown off of a screen pass served as a reminder that, at the end of the day, the NFL is a collection of really athletic dudes who can do a lot of things. Football is football — despite how uptight and serious the league gets at times.

Belichick is more ambitious than most when it comes to having a player take on a role on both sides of the ball. He has plenty of famous examples:

However, there are instances where it doesn’t work, like when tight end Rob Gronkowski played deep safety on what the defense thought was a Hail Mary. That helped bring about the infamous Miami Miracle.

With that said, it did work at other times. Gronkowski did break up a pass on defense against the Texans in Week 3 of the 2017 season.

Belichick is a football historian and is plenty familiar with Hall of Famers like Chuck Bednarik and Sammy Baugh, who played on both offense and defense. It’s worked in the past. It’s worked in recent history as well, with guys like Deion Sanders pulling it off.

Just look at baseball: The coolest thing the sport has going on right now (outside Aaron Judge’s historic home run mark) is Shohei Ohtani playing both ways for the Los Angeles Angels.

Professional athletes playing both sides of the ball is awesome. The NFL needs more of it.

The offensive line was a mess — as was the whole offense.

On the first play of the game, the New England Patriots called a running play that ran behind Conor McDermott, a right tackle they signed nine days earlier off of the New York Jets practice squad. It went for 2 yards.

That more or less summed up the situation up front for the Patriots on Thursday night. Tackles Isaiah Wynn and Yodny Cajuste were hurt. Meanwhile, left tackle Trent Brown was dealing with an illness.

That left an under-the-weather Brown and a thrown-into-the-fire McDermott as the starting tackles against one of the NFL’s best teams. Even with Von Miller out, that’s not a good way to make your dreams come true.

There were certainly spots where the Patriots managed to make plays. But to score points, you need to be consistent on offense. On Thursday, they were anything but.

Josh Uche is starting to put it all together.

Matthew Judon has gotten all the attention this year for an awesome season — and had earned it. But that shouldn’t overshadow what Uche is doing as a pass rusher opposite of him.

Uche has always had the athletic tools, but he’s really starting to put it all together in Year 3. The linebacker is up to seven sacks in his last five games. That’s compared to five sacks in his first 26 NFL games.

If this continues, the Patriots are setting up to have a fearsome pass-rushing duo between him and Judon.

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