What's up everybody?

Welcome in to the next Papps podcast.

We have a micropod on deck for you this July 15th. We were taking a little bit of a

hiatus from this particular podcast, but we had an opportunity to get an exclusive interview with

Patriots quarterback Mac Jones because this is sort of unofficially a Mac Jones podcast.

If you go back through our episodes over the course of the last, oh, I don't know,

year and a half, you might find that over half are dedicated to Mac Jones.

So we had a chance to chat with him at Hood Park in Charlestown, slinging ice cream.

He has the Mac attack flavor that was out today, straight out of the ice cream truck there at Hood Park, little blue ice cream with some chocolate chip cookie dough mixed in there. Yeah, I had some. Yeah, it was good. But that's not why you're here. You're here to listen to what he had to say, had a chance to catch up with him for a few minutes. So without further ado, let's get to our conversation with Mack Jones. All right here right now, Patriots quarterback Mack Jones. Mack, we are at beautiful Hood Park here in Charlestown. Why are we here? Tell us why we're here. Tell us why there's an ice cream truck behind us. Well, the whole point is to eat a bunch of good ice cream, right? So we're out here just enjoying the weather and there's a bunch of

great fans and we're just trying to come together as a community and enjoy you know a nice day in

boston and this is a beautiful you know area and then i'm excited to pass out the mac attack flavor

there you go so you will be handing out some mac attack ice cream to some Patriots fans that have been here,

waiting in line under the sun for a little while here. So ice cream for you is on the approved Mac Jones offseason diet because you've gone viral as looking on social media like a guy who's traded in the ice cream for the skinless chicken breast and broccoli.

There you go. Yeah, I mean, I've definitely improved my diet, but, you know, after you work really hard, it's not bad to just sit down and eat some ice cream. So every once in a while, it's like a little cheap meal, but I got it from my dad. He eats ice cream all the time, so I always have a little bit of ice cream flavor that I want to get. and you know it's just all fun and game so I'm just happy to be here hopefully I'll try my flavor make sure it's up to par and then hand it out to everybody else we'll have to get Ted Harper Patriots nutritionist on the phone make sure everything is on the up and up there but I remember talking to you during Super Bowl week and you did talk about how you wanted to make changes to your body and you felt like that was something that was important. Why did you feel like that was important, Mac? Because you had a year last year, you make the Pro Bowl as a rookie. You have one of the best statistical rookie seasons, the NFL seen in recent history here. So why was it important for you to make those physical changes that you've made this off season? Yeah, I think it's important to assess, and that was one of the things I wanted to improve, and I made significant strides in that area, fixing my body and feeling comfortable and feeling healthier and better. But, you know, it's at the end of the day, you're still a human and you want to, you know, eat what you want to eat, but you have to be disciplined as best you can, and ice cream, hood ice cream is one way to do it. So that's what I do for my late night dessert. Have you seen those changes that you've made translate already? Obviously you've done some spring practices with the team, but we've seen you working out with teammates and you've been on top of it as far as that goes. Have you noticed changes? Are you feeling it for your arm? That was another thing we spoke about months ago. You're talking about arm strength. That's something I want to improve. Is that something that you felt so far this off team? Yeah, I think it's all it all goes back into just trying to become a better player in person and that was my goal this off season and I feel better. I feel confident and that's what's important and I'm just going to try and go in there and do my thing and lead everybody and help us come together as a unit.

So that's kind of what it's all about. And the off-season is a great time to sit back,

you know, relax a little bit, but also try and make strides and where you want to make stride.

So I feel like I've done that.

You're about to hand some ice cream out to some new friends here. Yeah.

You have, though, logged some miles, my friend,

based on what we've seen on social media,

not to do the social media reporting thing, which is part of life, I guess, right now.

But it looks like you've been all over the country to meet up with teammates and make sure

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