Alabama Football: Mac Jones is used to having haters

Alabama football’s Mac Jones has been criticized for years

Mac Jones is weeks away from finding out where he will go in the 2021 NFL Draft, but he is already being criticized. As the draft approaches, it seems more and more likely that the Alabama football quarterback will be drafted third overall by the San Francisco 49ers, and their fans are not happy.

A simple scroll through Twitter shows what fans think about Mac Jones going to San Francisco. They would rather draft players like Justin Fields or Trey Lance, and they don’t see Jones being worth what they gave up to trade into the top three.

Landing in San Francisco would be an ideal scenario, but Jones would also land in a hostile situation due to the fans’ reaction. Thankfully for him, he is used to having doubters.

Jones was doubted as a high school recruit. While Alabama football recruited him, he was still the 399th overall prospect in his recruiting class. Since he was in the same class as Tua Tagovailoa, fans considered him to be a career backup. The debate was always between Tua and Jalen, but Mac never got recognition.

Even when he stepped in for Tua, many thought that Taulia should have been the guy. Alabama did lose to Auburn, but Jones kept the game close and showed his progression over the latter half of the 2019 season.

Even after his 2019 success, Alabama football fans debated whether or not he should start over Bryce Young. To be transparent, we had that exact debate on this website. On every step of Jones’s journey, he has faced doubt from fans and analysts. Still, that has not stopped him from succeeding with the Tide.

Mac Jones carried Alabama football to a title and became a finalist for the Heisman Trophy. It took multiple successful games during his final season before he had the support of Tide fans.

If the San Francisco 49ers were to draft Jones, he should know what to expect when he joins the team. He could easily be booed off the stage by 49ers fans. Still, he has experience with proving fans wrong.

At the end of the day, Kyle Shannahan must see something in Mac Jones. He knows more than any fan, and Jones will be in good hands. If he has a chance to succeed, he will make the most of it. That does not depend on how fans feel about him as a player.