Flying to London to be on the wrong end of a whooping at the hands of an awful Jaguars team had New England coach Jerod Mayo rather angry with his rudderless Patriots squad Sunday.
“We’re a soft football team across the board,” Mayo said after a 32-16 loss at Wembley Stadium. “We talk about what makes a tough football team, that’s being able to run the ball, being able to stop the run and that’s being able to stop kicks, and we did none of those today.”
Players almost always have to respond when a coach makes an inflammatory comment like Mayo’s and usually that burden falls on the quarterback.
For the Patriots (1-6), that left rookie Drake Maye addressing whether this current group of Patriots had gone soft.
“Coach Mayo is not going to come in here and say something he hasn’t said to us in the locker room,” said Maye following his second-career start. “We’re not tough, he always preaches being tough. He preached it today. Being tough, we’re not running the football, stopping the run and covering kicks, is what he said. I think he does a great job of relaying the message to us and the guys know. Jon Jones gave a speech after the game saying, ‘You got to find it. We’ve got to find something.’ What we’re doing is not good enough. Got to man up.”
The reality for the Patriots is they are a terrible team that seemingly has a bright spot in Maye. There are going to be a lot more bumps and bruises before the Patriots get back to winning football.
The Jaguars (2-5) entered Sunday’s game looking like perhaps the worst team in the league, but the Patriots offered little resistance.
Jacksonville rushed for 171 yards and a 4.4 yards per carry average compared to the Patriots’ 38 yards and a 2.5 yards per carry mark, and New England also yielded a 96-yard punt return for a touchdown.
Mayo clarified Monday that he felt his team is playing soft compared to being soft in general.
“It’s a mentality and it’s an attitude. Here as of late, our run game just hasn’t been able to do anything offensively,” the first-year head coach said Sunday after a sixth straight loss. “Definitely, we got to play better. Better technique. We got to lock our guy out in front of us. That’s what it comes down to, locking the guy out in front of you, dominating him and making the tackle.”
Maye, despite having a lack of weapons, threw for 276 yards and two touchdowns, along with three rushes for 18 yards.
He’s thrown for 519 yards, five touchdowns and two interceptions spanning his first two starts.
Mayo thought Maye “did a good job” and he’ll have a chance to grab his first career win when he faces the reeling Jets at home Sunday.
“I thought we made some plays,” Maye said. “Just not good enough.”
