FOXBOROUGH – Will Jerod Mayo’s soft serve remark be a motivator? Or will it dig the Patriots and their coach into a deeper hole?
How the Patriots perform Sunday will reveal whether Mayo’s characterization of his football team being soft inspires them to greater heights against the hated New York Jets, or if it shows the players have completely tuned out their head coach.
Option No. 3?
The Patriots, sitting at 1-6, simply aren’t good enough to make the kind of response that’s needed. Whatever way it turns, the game against Aaron Rodgers and the Jets, the team that set the Patriots into their downward spiral with a Week 3 blowout win, will serve to further define Mayo and his team.
In the locker room Wednesday, there was an odd vibe and a mixed bag of reactions when asking players about the criticism from the head coach.
Some players took the “soft” question head on, vowing to prove the label wrong. Others claimed they didn’t know the reference, and weren’t aware of what Mayo said. A third group was sick of getting asked that question, and were trying to ignore the noise.
Mayo, meanwhile, was on to the Jets. He didn’t want to revisit the remarks he made following the 32-16 loss to the Jaguars that set off a firestorm. He repeated the notion he uses the media to send messages to the players, and that was it. He was forging ahead.
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“All the guys understand. We’ve had our conversations,” Mayo said Wednesday. “It’s on to the Jets, and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re just going to go out there and play good football. That’s what we need to do in all three phases of the game.”
At this stage, whether he meant the Patriots were soft, or played soft is irrelevant. The response on the field is what’s important. The Patriots, with rookie Drake Maye now under center, have a chance to bury the Jets and their playoff aspirations. Rodgers & Co., who had Super Bowl aspirations, are 2-5 and can’t afford another loss.
Mayo targeted three areas where he wants his team to exhibit toughness: running the ball, stopping the run and covering kicks.
Plugging the opposing team’s run game has been a weekly nightmare of late. The Jaguars ran at will, gashing the Patriots defense up the middle to the tune of 171 yards, at one point ripping off 17 straight runs. The previous two games, the run totals were 193 and 192 yards.
Defensive lineman Daniel Ekuale, who has taken on a greater role up front in wake of Christian Barmore’s absence, laid out the mission.
“I feel like for us, we can use that (soft reference) two ways,” Ekuale said. “Be sensitive about it, or just go out there and make it motivation. Play as hard as you can be, and find a way to win. That’s the way I look at it.”
Ekuale said eliminating the soft reference is a collective problem. It doesn’t fall on any one individual.
“For us, we just have to come together as a team, and just do what we gotta do,” he said. “We have to find a way to win.”
That would be the ultimate response. That would send a great message.
Running back Antonio Brown claimed he wasn’t up on Mayo’s comments about being soft, but he agreed the running game needs to crank it back up after producing 38 yards (on 15 carries), and 82 yards (on 26 carries) the last two games.
“The head coach feels a certain way about it, so it’s something we need to be better at,” Brown said about running the football. “But you can’t take nothing in this game personal. If that’s how he feels about it, that’s how he feels. It’s up to us to correct it.”
Special teams standout Brenden Schooler, meanwhile, hates how his unit performed in London against the Jaguars on Sunday, allowing a 96-yard punt return.
Prior to that, the special teams units had been getting the job done for the most part when it came to covering kicks.
“We have to do our jobs better,” Schooler said Wednesday. “What we put on film (against the Jaguars), I don’t think is a good representation of how we want to carry ourselves on the field, and the identity we want to move forward with.
“That’s not what you want to put on film. I agree with what (Mayo) said. I don’t think that was a very good play as a whole as a unit. I take responsibility. I’ll be the first one to say I could have done better on that (96-yard touchdown). So moving forward, it’s about doing your job. It’s not about worrying about anyone else’s job and what else is going on.
“We’ve addressed it. We’re moving forward,” Schooler went on. “We’re going to fix whatever needs to be fixed.”
Schooler said he was “100 percent” certain the Patriots would have a response on Sunday.
What that means, how that plays out, is anyone’s guess at this point.
