Successive emphatic defeats to Scotland and Ireland have undone the progress made during England's 12-Test winning run and turned the round-four appointment against Italy in Rome on March 7 into a game they dare not lose.
It is a very different scenario to the one Borthwick had envisioned when naming his Six Nations squad last month, saying: "We want England fans flooding across the Channel to Paris to watch the team in a massive encounter in the final round with the opportunity to achieve what we want."
Jones, twice Australia's coach and Borthwick's predecessor as England boss, suggested they were "very uncharacteristic comments" from his old assistant.
"Steve is the most pragmatic and intelligent coach you could meet, but to look ahead for any team is fraught with danger. We all know that," Jones told the Rugby Unity podcast.
"But sometimes the pressure comes so that the union, the RFU, wants to hear more. They want to entice the fans because they're all hungry for money so they want fans support. So be bold, come out - someone has told him to do that.
"The players read everything, the wives read everything, the girlfriends read everything, the boyfriends read everything, they all read it.
"They hear that and they talk to them and they say, 'We've got to get our tickets for France. Where are we staying? Where are we going to go the night before for dinner?'
"All of that happens and the slight psychological change you get in the team because of that, they start to look ahead."
Amid their woes, on a day when British & Irish Lions scrum-half Alex Mitchell was ruled out by a hamstring injury for the rest of the tournament, it was revealed on Wednesday that the team is to take advice from some of Martin Johnson's 2003 World Cup winners as they look to rebuild.
A pre-planned dinner with nine members of the squad that lifted the World Cup 23 years ago has now taken on greater significance with Borthwick instructing his players to mine them for insights.
Johnson, Lawrence Dallaglio, Phil Vickery, Jason Leonard, Ben Kay, Richard Hill, Lewis Moody, Paul Grayson and Will Greenwood will aim to rally Borthwick's men at the event on Tuesday night.
The dinner has been arranged by positions with Moody, who in October announced he has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease, hosting a table for the back rows.
"The purpose of this is to learn from their experiences. They had setbacks. They had moments where games didn't go the way they wanted them to," Borthwick said.
