Before Jerod Mayo opened the floor for questions after the Patriots’ lopsided loss to the Chargers, New England’s head coach made a troubling admission.
“This is what I told the players, there’s really nothing good to take out of that game today,” Mayo told reporters, per a team-provided transcript. “Just the lack of execution.”
Mayo deserves some credit for not trying to sugarcoat a nightmarish situation. The Patriots didn’t offer anything to write home about in the 40-7 decision at Gillette Stadium on Saturday afternoon. But the harsh reality was another indictment on the first-year head coach.
Mayo defenders — if there are any at this point — can save the “there wasn’t anything to play for” argument. That’s bogus. Even if players were motivated entirely by personal reasons — such as incentives or free-agent stock — New England should not have entered Week 17 already defeated. The Patriots also had a chance to play spoiler — a narrative Mayo admitted to speaking with players about — against a Los Angeles team that still was without a playoff spot entering Saturday.
But despite readily available fuel for the fire, New England put forth one of its worst all-around performances of the season on its home turf. That was a tough feat to pull off by a 3-13 football team that’s been awful for the majority of the season, and quite frankly, it was unacceptable. This season was supposed to be about development for the Patriots, and a grand total of zero of them performed well in their penultimate tilt of the campaign.
And when we say zero, we mean zero. Even Drake Maye, who appears to be blossoming into a star quarterback, didn’t do much of anything against the Bolts. Maye’s lone highlight was on a free play where the rookie threw up a prayer toward the end zone and the undersized DeMario Douglas somehow latched onto the pigskin.
That’s not how a rebuilding team should have looked at that point in the season, even one primed to make one of the first picks in the upcoming draft. The Patriots should have played inspired football with hopes of ending the season strong and setting a positive tone for next season. But they looked completely flat and largely checked out, which seemingly means the coaches didn’t do their jobs of getting players ready to play.
The lion’s share of recent reporting about Mayo indicated New England ownership gave a long leash to the former linebacker and wasn’t eager to make a coaching change. But if you’re sitting atop the totem pole of a franchise, how could you watch Saturday’s game and feel comfortable moving forward with the current regime?
