Jerod Mayo Not Worried About Losing Patriots Locker Room, But Should He Be?

Jerod Mayo and the New England Patriots suffered a sixth straight loss when they got pummeled across the pond against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday.

The defeat prompted Mayo to offer blunt criticism of the group and multiple Patriots players called out teammates. But the first-year head coach expressed he isn’t worried about losing morale in the locker room, and ultimately losing the team.

“I’m not worried about that,” Mayo told reporters after the 32-16 loss, per a team-provided transcript. “The guys, they understand. Every week is its own week.”

During the latest episode of NESN’s “Foxboro Rush” podcast, co-hosts George Balekji and Travis Thomas weighed in on the topic with NESN’s Sean T. McGuire.

“Sometimes, if you’re an established coach, you can do that and it can light a fire under your team,” Thomas said while referencing Mayo’s call-out. “I fear for Jerod Mayo, who is far from established anything in terms of a coach. I think he can lose the locker room with this stuff.”

McGuire said he understood Thomas’ fear when it came to Mayo losing the locker room but pointed to the responses of Drake Maye, Kyle Dugger, Hunter Henry and others.

“They didn’t push back at it,” McGuire said. “I do think that at this point, the players’ response publicly, the players’ public response to those comments, was pretty good today.”

McGuire and Balekji did agree with Thomas, though, that things could turn quickly should the Patriots suffer another blowout loss to the New York Jets at Gillette Stadium on Sunday.

You can check out the latest episode of NESN’s “Foxboro Rush” on YouTube and Spotify.