FOXBOROUGH — A five-year NFL vet, Antonio Gibson is still searching for his first winning season.
The closest he’s gotten is Washington’s 8-8-1 record in 2022 that still landed them in the NFC East basement. As such, Gibson has a unique perspective on what can happen to splintering locker rooms in December. Though the veteran back said there’s a lot of frustration in New England — how could there not be at 3-11? — he believes there’s a something positive about the groundwork being laid.
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“We don’t go pointing fingers, blaming each other,” Gibson said. “That’s when the locker room gets separated and you start to see all the negative talk inside and outside of the building. So I think we do a pretty good job of holding it together regardless of what’s going on.
“I’ve seen when a locker room gets depressed and nobody is talking, nobody is wanting to do the workouts,” Gibson said. “It’s not that here right now. That’s another positive for us. Everybody continues to show up for work, get the workout done, do the extra things we need to do instead of tossing it all up before the season actually ends. I feel like we all go together pretty well.”
Gibson was honest when asked a follow-up question about what’s kept the 2024 Patriots from becoming one of those finger-pointing teams.
“It just shows the type of guys we’ve got in the locker room,” Gibson said. “We’ve got our problems in the locker room, it’s a long season, I’m not (going) to sit here and act like everything is OK, but we’re not just blaming everybody here and there and just being sad about it. At the end of the day, we’re blessed to be here. It didn’t go how we wanted it to go. We all want to win. That’s always the focus and we haven’t done that, so there is frustration, but nobody is pointing fingers. I think that’s just simply the guys in the locker room. The type of guys we’ve got in the locker room.”
The running back also stood up for embattled head coach Jerod Mayo, pointing to his own slow start as evidence that everybody goes through a slump at one point or another.
“That’s our head coach. We’re rocking with him,” Gibson said. “When things go bad, you don’t want to just bail,” Gibson said. “I had a rough start and those guys didn’t give up on me. So I wouldn’t want anybody to give up on him as well. It takes time.”
