First-year New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo didn’t hold back after the team’s tough 32-16 loss to Jacksonville in London, marking their sixth consecutive defeat.
“It was a disappointing game,” Mayo said, according to the team’s official transcript. “We started strong, but across the board, we’re a soft football team. A tough football team can run the ball, stop the run, and cover kicks—we didn’t do any of that today. They dominated possession, ran all over us, and we couldn’t establish our own run game. It’s back to the drawing board for us. We can’t dwell on it, we just have to find a way to put a full game together.”
The Patriots got off to a promising start, scoring on their first two drives and taking a 10-0 lead. However, things quickly unraveled as the Jaguars went on to score 25 unanswered points and dominated the remainder of the game.
New England’s run game struggled mightily, with just 15 carries for 38 yards. If you remove quarterback Drake Maye’s 18 rushing yards, the team managed only 12 carries for a meager 20 yards—a 1.6-yard average per carry. Meanwhile, the Jaguars racked up 171 rushing yards on 39 carries, and they did so without their starting running back, Travis Etienne.
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The Patriots’ struggles in the trenches, both on offense and defense, are becoming a glaring issue. While the offense’s difficulties due to a weak offensive line were somewhat expected, the defense’s underperformance is especially concerning for Mayo in his first season as head coach.
When asked about what makes his team “soft,” Mayo reflected, “I’m not sure. It’s something I need to think about. It’s not like we did something different that suddenly made us soft, but it’s a mentality we need to bring back into the team.”
On Monday, after a night to reflect, Mayo stood by his comments. “We went out there and played soft. Right now, we’re playing soft,” he said. “But I believe in the guys in the locker room. I know they can turn this around, but it’s going to take hard work.”
Being labeled “soft” is tough for any football player to hear, and Mayo using that word just seven games into his tenure highlights how serious the Patriots’ rebuild is. Sunday’s defeat also marked the team’s first six-game losing streak since 1993, the year before Robert Kraft bought the club.
