Patriots coach Jerod Mayo shared his thoughts about his team’s performance against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday. He also made his feelings clear to everyone else. “We’re a soft football team across the board,” Mayo said.
New England (1-6) lost their sixth game in a row, falling 32-16 at Wembley Stadium after giving up an early lead, allowing 171 rushing yards, and a touchdown on a punt return.
“What makes a tough football team? That’s being able to run the ball, that’s being able to stop the run and that’s being able to cover kicks. We did none of those today,” Mayo said.
This is the team’s longest losing streak since 1993.
The Patriots started strong, taking a 10-0 lead by scoring on their first two drives. Drake Maye threw a 16-yard touchdown pass to JaMycal Hasty on the first drive, followed by a 41-yard field goal from Joey Slye.
After that, Jacksonville scored four times in a row. Tank Bigsby ran 26 times for 118 yards and two touchdowns, while the Patriots struggled to stop Jacksonville’s offense in the second half.
“I felt like as we kept running the ball that the Patriots were getting tired,” Bigsby said. He added, “on film it shows, fourth quarter comes, third quarter comes, those guys start arm tackling. We just did what we had to do.”
New England managed to rush for only 38 yards.
“They controlled the ball for most of the day,” Mayo said. “Back to the drawing board. We can’t sit here and pout.”
Parker Washington scored on a 96-yard punt return in the second quarter. He caught Bryce Baringer’s 66-yard punt at the Jacksonville 4-yard line, ran straight, then moved left to dodge two tacklers and found open space.
“I saw guys getting out-leveraged, I saw a punt down the middle of the field, which is always difficult to cover,” Mayo said. “He has a strong leg and he outkicked his coverage and we weren’t disciplined in our lanes.”
Maye, making his second career start, completed 26 of 37 passes for 276 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He also scrambled three times for 18 yards.
The Patriots closed the gap to nine points when Maye connected with K.J. Osborn for a 22-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter, but the 2-point conversion attempt failed.
The third overall pick in this year’s NFL draft mentioned that Mayo shared his honest thoughts in the locker room, and veteran cornerback Jonathan Jones also spoke up.
“Jon Jones gave a speech after the game saying ‘you’ve got to find it,’” Maye said. “What we’re doing is not good enough. Got to man up.”
