Patriots Can’t Disagree With Jerod Mayo’s ‘Soft’ Assessment

The Patriots dropped their sixth straight game, and head coach Jerod Mayo said New England is a “soft football team across the board.”

The first-year head coach admitted to using the media as a “vehicle to reinforce his message,” and the players weren’t exactly shocked when asked about being called out.

“Coach Mayo is not going to come in here and say something he hasn’t said to us in the locker room,” rookie quarterback Drake Maye told reporters, per team-provided transcript. “He preaches being tough. He preached it today, being tough. Being tough is running the football, stopping the run, covering kicks, is what he said.

“I think he does a great job of relaying the messages to us. The guys know. (Jonathan) Jones gave a speech after the game, saying you got to find it, go to find something. Know what we’re doing is not good enough. Got to man up.”

Safety Kyle Dugger registered nine solo tackles in the Patriots’ loss to the Jaguars and didn’t disagree with Mayo’s message. He even valued the honesty.

“He kept it real with us,” Dugger said, per team-provided transcript. “I’m glad he did, yeah. Appreciate it.”

“Yeah, I mean, that wasn’t what we want to be at all,” tight end Hunter Henry added, per team-provided transcript. “That wasn’t the identity we want to be. We weren’t able to get the run game going like we want. So, we’ve got to be better running the football, controlling the clock, moving the ball, obviously scoring more points.”