Why Patriots’ Matthew Judon Felt Need To Make Statement After Loss

FOXBORO, Mass. — Matthew Judon summed up the Patriots’ postgame sentiment in his unprompted statement Sunday night.

New England “is not a bad team,” the star edge rusher said after his team dropped a 24-17 decision to the Miami Dolphins on national television, but it needs to eliminate the mistakes that caused it to fall into double-digit deficits in each of its first two games.

Judon made those remarks before taking any questions from reporters — an unusual approach by anyone outside of head coach Bill Belichick. When he returned to the podium Thursday afternoon, Judon was asked why he felt the need to do so.

The statement, Judon replied, was not aimed at anyone in the Patriots’ locker room. Rather, it was an attempt to preempt the “negative” questions he knew he’d receive.

Here’s the full transcript of his response:

“I think it was more just the way y’all (reporters) were phrasing questions and stuff. You were just so down. That’s not me, and y’all know that’s not how I am. So I said that to say, OK, when we address the situation, we’re going to talk realistically.

“We’re not going to act like it’s all good. We’re going to say what we need to improve on. We’re going to say what we need to do to get wins. But we’re not just going to talk negatively. I think when you let negative talk creep in or you let external factors creep into a locker room or into your head, people kind of hang their head a little bit more.

“Unfortunately — fortunately for y’all — we’ve got to talk to y’all after the game. We already feel bad that we lost. Y’all just reporting; y’all just doing your job. But we’ve got to talk to y’all, and sometimes, the way y’all phrase questions and y’all ask questions, it might not be as friendly as we would want to talk.

“So I just came out and said it’s not a bad team in the locker room. We lost games, yes. Everybody loses games. Unfortunately, we just haven’t won any games. But when we turn it around, it’s going to get turned around, and we’ve got to do that by executing and playing better football for 60 minutes. Not just a half, not just a quarter or not just glimpses of it — we’ve got to do it the whole game. And if we do it the whole game, we’ve got the team to do it.

“So when we have that track record, then it’s everybody coming in there and we meet in the team room or wherever we’re talking to the media, and just the feel of the media room is different, when you come in there and everyone has the smiles and jokes about the game.

“But when you lose, it’s just down, and I just don’t like it. So that’s what I was more addressing than the state of our team.”

“We’re not going to act like it’s all good. … But we’re not just going to talk negatively.”

Matthew Judon

Judon went on to say the Patriots didn’t have any sort of players-only meeting after the Miami loss, which dropped them to 0-2 on the season for the first time since 2001. Such a move isn’t necessary in late September, the four-time Pro Bowler said, in part because he and his teammates give each other honest and critical feedback on a daily basis.

“I think we all know where we’re at,” Judon said. “We don’t got to have a come to Jesus meeting after the second week. We’ve got a long season to go. I think that’s kind of looking when you get more down the line and you come together without the coaches, without anybody and you actually talk honest.

“But I think the good thing about our locker room is that we do that freely. We talk honest. We talk to each other harsh sometimes, but sometimes you need to hear it. Sometimes you need to hear it from your brother, and it’s better to come from somebody that actually goes out there to fight and bleed with you than somebody that’s just chilling on the sideline drinking Gatorade.”

The Patriots will look to avoid their first 0-3 start since 1993 when they visit the Zach Wilson-led New York Jets this Sunday.