The New England Patriots don’t seem to care anymore.
Well, that’s at least how fans might interpret the reports and rumblings that emerged after New England’s 34-15 loss to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday.
At least three Patriots reporters — Boston Herald’s Andrew Callahan, Boston Sports Journal’s Greg Bedard and MassLive’s Mark Daniels — made note of the mood in the visiting locker room at Hard Rock Stadium. Their reporting probably won’t sit well with Patriots fans.
“That was one of the lighter #Patriots locker rooms after a bad loss I can remember,” Callahan posted on X on Sunday afternoon. “Not a happy locker room, but more players smiling and joking than normal to say it felt at least accepting of the blowout and their reality at 3-9.”
Daniels wrote in a MassLive column: ” … Just around the corner, it was a different scene with several players on offense smiling and laughing with one another. It was a strange scene for a team that was embarrassed by the Miami Dolphins. Although not everyone was happy — several players were upset — the sounds of light laughter filled the side of the room where offensive players got dressed.”
Bedard shared much of the same when he appeared on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s postgame coverage. Bedard said he felt the group was “unbothered” by the result. He did note, however, that he doesn’t think the team has tuned out Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo.
“One thing I did want to mention to you guys: I would say my biggest takeaway from being in the locker room was that I thought – my opinion, this is my opinion from being in there and I’ve been in a bunch of different locker rooms over my 20-year career – I thought that the locker room seemed to be unbothered by today’s result,” Bedard said on the radio. “I was surprised. Maybe it’s because it was 31-0 and they had been thinking about it for a while, had come to realize the battle was lost earlier on. I don’t know. But I was surprised at how talkative, there were more smiles than you would think. I would say Drake Maye definitely, from what I saw, took the loss hard. There were certainly some guys that took the lost hard. But I would say on the whole I thought that the locker room seemed a little unbothered by the whole loss and I’m not sure how to process that.”
Both Daniels and Bedard included rookie quarterback Drake Maye as someone who did not react the same as his lighthearted teammates. No players were mentioned by name in any of the three reports.
