SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Three days before he would engineer a come-from-behind two-minute drive to help the San Francisco 49ers defeat the Arizona Cardinals, quarterback Mac Jones stood at a podium and corrected himself in real time. Asked what he took from his first start as a Niner against the New Orleans Saints the previous week, Jones began his answer by saying he had taken everything he had seen and heard from his coaches and used it to "fix" things.
Moments after the word fix came out of Jones' mouth, he corrected himself and noted that he hates the word.
"I feel like it sometimes has a negative connotation," Jones said. "I think you're just trying to grow and learn and do things better. So that's what I think it is. I don't think anything's broken and when you hear fix, that's what you think. But in football every week it's a new week. The NFL, they don't care if you won last week or lost. It's a fresh slate, fresh canvas and you got to go out there and paint a good picture."
Perhaps no 49er knows the value of that blank slate better than Jones, who by his own admission came to San Francisco to reset a once-promising career that has seen him burst on to the scene as a rookie leading the New England Patriots and struggle as the backup of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Now in his third act as an NFL quarterback, Jones has already had two opportunities to prove that he has good football left in him. In the process, the 49ers have learned a lot about their No. 2 signal-caller, even as Brock Purdy is poised to return from a toe injury sooner than later.
With that in mind, here's what Jones proved to his new team and the league in the past two weeks as the starting quarterback:
1. He's determined to change the narrative(s)
Through his first four NFL seasons, Jones didn't enjoy success in leading his team to come-from-behind victories.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, there were 10 regular or postseason games before Sunday where Jones was the quarterback on a drive that began in the final 2 minutes of the fourth quarter and his team trailed by seven or fewer points.
There was only one in which he led a go-ahead drive: a 2023 Week 7 win against Buffalo in which he threw a touchdown to tight end Mike Gesicki with 12 seconds to go as a member of the Patriots.
What's more, Jones' teams were 4-23 in games in which his team trailed by one score in the fourth quarter at any point.
While those numbers might seem too deep in the weeds for some, Jones was well aware of them after leading the Niners to the winning field goal against Arizona.
Before the offense went on the field for that drive, Jones turned to receiver Ricky Pearsall and said, simply, "Let's do this. Let's go."
"I failed a lot in that situation to be honest," Jones said. "I really was just motivated to change the narrative. ... Not to look in the past but I did think about that and just took a deep breath and just kind of blanked everything and said, 'All right, let's play a new game here and go down there and score.'"
While the narrative about Jones' struggles in close and late situations is but a microcosm of the bigger issues that have plagued his career, Jones arrived in San Francisco intent on changing how he's viewed in general and with reshaping his value around the league, much like Sam Darnold did in his one-year stopover in 2023.
2. Jones can play through pain
Unbeknownst to most late in the win against Arizona, Jones was dealing with a knee injury he said he "reaggravated" on the fourth-quarter sequence that ended when the Niners went for and didn't get a fourth-down conversion.
Jones missed time in the preseason with a sprained knee but he had no desire to step aside against the Cardinals, especially with Purdy inactive and backup Adrian Martinez possessing no regular-season experience.
After the injury, Jones tried to play with a brace, shed it and eventually put it back on. Jones said he "should be good" but he acknowledged that the injury affected his play on just about every level until he forced himself to push through the pain.
Jones finished the win against Arizona, going 27-of-41 for 284 yards with a touchdown and an interception for a 65.3 QBR.
"I thought he did some really good things," 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said. "The way he came back on the end on that last drive, he was unbelievable. Even scrambling around when his knee was bothering him."
Since taking over as the starter, Jones is fourth in the NFL in passing yards per game (281.5) with four touchdowns and an interception for a 65.8 QBR, which is eighth in the league in that span. That production has come for Jones despite the fact that the offense has been without tight end George Kittle (hamstring) and receivers Brandon Aiyuk (knee), Jauan Jennings (shoulder, ankle) and Demarcus Robinson (suspension).
"I just want to give all the credit in the world to Mac because that's really a difficult situation to be in and he's doing a really good job stepping up," Pearsall said. "That just shows the kind of man he is and what he's about."
3. Jones is comfortable in the two-minute drill
Yes, it's a bit of small sample size theater but Jones has proved adept at moving the offense into scoring position when the clock is running down.
On the Arizona game's final drive, Jones was 5-of-7 (not including a spike to stop the clock) for 59 yards to set up kicker Eddy Pineiro's winning 35-yard field goal. On the Niners' final drive before halftime, Jones was 6-of-9 for 53 yards to set up Piñeiro's second field goal of the day, a 51-yard make with 17 seconds left in the half.
Those two drives followed a performance in New Orleans in which Jones masterfully directed a touchdown drive just before halftime in which he was 7-of-8 for 77 yards and a touchdown pass to running back Christian McCaffrey for a Niners 16-7 lead.
The common denominator in that success? A no-huddle, hurry-up offense in which Jones doesn't have time to get bogged down by thinking about all the potential outcomes.
"I love it," Jones said. "I enjoy it because I think it takes thinking out of it and you just go out there and play and you get into a rhythm. ... You're trying to run the play that's called and you're not trying to chase the play. You need a touchdown or field goal, but you just got to take it one play at a time."
The 49ers don't often use no-huddle tempo but if Jones has to play again, it's something Shanahan could keep in his back pocket if the offense needs a jump start.
4. Jones' personality has made him a good fit in the 49ers' locker room.
Defensive end Nick Bosa didn't know much about Jones before the QB signed a two-year, $8.4 million deal with the Niners in March. As Bosa tells it, though, it didn't take long for Jones to endear himself to the locker room.
"He's just fun energy," Bosa said. "To have a backup quarterback who has that much swagger, the offense feeds off of it."
Other teammates and coaches rave about Jones' dry sense of humor and willingness to be self-deprecating while still taking his job seriously. During training camp, Jones said, "Everyone thinks I'm really slow" and suggested he looks like Forrest Gump with his upright running style.
When a PR staffer yelled Jones' name before he went to do his postgame news conference, the locker room erupted with chants of "Mac Joooooones," a nod to rapper Mike Jones, as Mac Jones chuckled and joined in on the bit.
During Sunday's broadcast of the win against Arizona, the broadcast team noted Jones owns upwards of 75 suits.
Shanahan's wife, Mandy, even mentioned it to her husband after Jones wore a red suit to the season opener in Seattle.
"My wife said, 'He must be really funny and have a sense of humor,' because she saw his suit that he wore to the game. I said, 'I don't think he is trying to be funny. He's just got swag. ... He's got a lot of energy, and I think our guys have really enjoyed him so far."
5. Jones could be setting himself up to start again somewhere ... perhaps sooner than later.
With Purdy expected to return as soon as this week against the Jaguars, Jones is poised to return to his backup role. Given what he has accomplished in his two starts, it's reasonable to think that some team, somewhere will, at some point, be willing to give him another shot as a starter.
Just how soon that could happen would depend on a variety of factors, not least of which is the fact that he's under contract with the 49ers through the 2026 season. Given what Jones has accomplished in Purdy's stead, it's hard to imagine the Niners being willing to move on from Jones any time soon, even if they get a decent trade offer in return.
Could that change in the offseason when the quarterback carousel begins to spin? Perhaps. but no team knows better than the 49ers who are only a few years removed from losing an NFC Championship Game when they ran out of healthy quarterbacks.
"Mac obviously is somebody who's proven himself already," McCaffrey said. "But to have him as our backup is huge."