FOXBOROUGH – Jerod Mayo didn’t hide his disappointment over the way his defense played in Sunday’s 41-21 loss to the Houston Texans.
For starters, the Patriots defense could not stop the run. It’s like the Texans picked up where the Miami Dolphins left off last week gashing the defense for a ton of yards.
Joe Mixon (102 yards) had a 59 yard run in the second quarter, along with a 20-yard TD run. Dameon Pierce added a 54-yard scamper for a touchdown.
Tackling continues to be an issue. Ditto penalties, as the Patriots have now lost five straight.
“Defensively I would say just the fundamentals of just tackling, our run fits have to improve. They have to improve,” Mayo said during his post-game press conference. “I told all those guys, I said, “you should feel like crap today. You should feel like crap.” You take away those two long runs, we had two runs over 50 yards. That’s just not winning football.”
Members of Mayo’s defense didn’t argue.
Jahlani Tavai summed it up this way when asked several questions about the play of the defense: “Not good enough.”
Davon Godchaux, expanded. And boy did he ever. The veteran defensive tackle questioned the team’s fight. He said Drake Maye putting up 21 points in his NFL debut should have been good enough. The defense, however, couldn’t get off the field.
Godchaux had no problem with Mayo being tough on the defense.
“Guys got to take accountability,” Godchaux said. “If you thought the game was over in the third quarter, it’s really just about having pride … (expletive), it don’t look like we had pride out there. We really just don’t know how to win, that’s what it boils down to. It’s just frustrating.”
Godchaux was pressed further about the lack of pride.
“Even if you think we were out of the game, the offense gave us 21 points,” he said. “Usually, with our defense, the standard, when we get 21 points, the opposing offense doesn’t score 21 points. I know there were some tough calls on third down. I’m not going to blame the referees. But there were some calls they didn’t help us out on early in the game … but, they called it, and we gotta live with it. We really didn’t respond to that.”
C.J. Stroud had modest numbers (20-for-31, 192 yards) but he threw for three touchdown passes. He was also aided in the first quarter by pass interference penalties on Marte Mapu and Marcus Jones.
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Godchaux thought the team did fairly well stopping the run, but the Texans had “three wham plays that creased us, a Mixon touchdown (20 yards), a Mixon 60-yard run … just the same old story. I really don’t know what to say.
“We just gotta figure out a way to get back to the standard of playing great defense,” Godchaux said. “Forty-one points is embarrassing.”
Godchaux wouldn’t use the loss of key players, namely Matthew Judon (via trade), Christian Barmore and Ja’Whaun Bentley (injury) and Jabrill Peppers (arrest for domestic violence).
“Last year, we lost big pieces, too, and it was a great defense,” he said, referring to Judon and Christian Gonzalez. “So that’s really just an excuse if anybody says that. The ‘next man up’ mentality, you get paid to do a job and play at a high level … I just feel like people aren’t taking that approach. We gotta do a better job as a team and figure out how to win games, close games. We lost two close games to Miami and Seattle. We gotta figure out how to win close games. We don’t know how to do that yet.”
Godchaux said the team prepares well during the week, and is coached well. They just don’t put it out on the field. They’re beating themselves.
“It’s missed tackles, blown assignments,” he said. “Being where you’re supposed to be. It’s too much of not doing that. I could go on and on. It is what it is.”
Added Mayo: “It goes back to every single play being important, and you can stop them, stop them, stop them, and then all of a sudden it’s a 50-yard run. We can’t live in that world.”
