Patriots
“After watching the film, I still feel Jacoby gives us the best chance to win football games.”
Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo made his weekly appearance on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” on Monday morning — touching on topics like New England’s current QB depth chart, Thursday’s loss to the Jets, and more.
Here are three takeaways from Mayo’s interview.
Mayo offers up support for Brissett
Mayo made plenty of headlines in the immediate aftermath of Thursday’s 24-3 loss to the Jets, declaring “I don’t know” when asked if he was considering a change at quarterback after such a lopsided result.
While New England’s woeful performance on offense at MetLife Stadium was more of an indictment on the Patriots horrendous offensive line than Jacoby Brissett’s play, the team showed some signs of life once rookie Drake Maye took the reins in garbage time.
Even though Maye was sacked twice over New England’s final drive of the evening, the promising QB did lead the Patriots 46 yards down the field, gaining four first downs and possessing the ball for 4:24 of New England’s 19:56 of total time of possession.
Maye showcased plenty of his potential on Thursday, but Mayo did an about-face in his comments about New England’s QB competition on Friday — less than 12 hours after initially casting doubt about Brissett’s QB1 status.
“Jacoby is our quarterback until I say he’s not the quarterback,” Mayo said on Friday. “I thought last night he showed a lot of toughness, a lot of grit. On protection breakdowns, he tried to do what we asked him to do. I would say as a team, as a coaching staff, we’ve just got to be better.”
So what changed between Thursday night and Friday morning to validate Mayo’s belief in his veteran QB moving forward?
“I couldn’t sleep, so I watched all the film — all three phases through the wee hours of the morning,” Mayo said on WEEI. “And after watching the film, I still feel Jacoby gives us the best chance to win football games, and we’re 100% behind that decision.”
While New England is moving forward with Brissett at QB for Sunday’s road matchup against the 49ers, Mayo stressed that he was impressed with what Maye showcased in his first NFL reps against the Jets, even if there were things worth correcting as well.
“I would say first, the one thing I liked was just his toughness,” Mayo said of Maye. “You know, he took a couple hits when he was in there. He also made some plays with his feet, which I thought was very encouraging. … On the other side, just like any other rookie quarterback, or quarterback without a lot of experience, there were times you see him looking at the rush.
“And that’s a natural thing, and he just has to get over that hump. And that comes with more playing time.”
As the Patriots move forward with Brissett as the starter, Mayo also pushed back against the notion that Maye needs legitimate in-game reps in order to properly evaluate his progression.
In particular, Mayo pointed out the current workload that Maye is logging during practices. The rookie accounted for 30 percent of the reps with the starting unit in practice.
“Look, Jacoby’s our quarterback — I don’t want to really deal with the hypotheticals,” Mayo said. “But I will say every position is a competition. And once again, I just think Jacoby gives us our best chance. And that’s the balance.
“And the next question you’re gonna ask, ‘Can you have a true evaluation of Drake if he’s not getting the, let’s say 50/50 split?’ And, I think we can. And, once again, because he’s not out there all the time with the ones, he is getting a lot of reps out there on the field. And we’ll evaluate those reps.”
Patriots owner Robert Kraft made an appearance on Amazon Prime’s pregame coverage ahead of Thursday’s game at MetLife Stadium, during which he raised some eyebrows with his declaration that he tabbed Mayo as the team’s next head coach five years ago.
“Look, Jerod learned a lot from Bill [Belichick], you know the technical background,” Kraft said. “But they’re each special individuals. I’ve gotten to know Jerod over the last 15 years. And you know, I picked him five years ago to be our next head coach. He’s very special, and it’s great he had the ability to train under Bill.”
Mayo was on New England’s coaching staff in the fall of 2019, but it was his first year as an NFL coach. The former Patriots linebacker spent the previous four years working as vice president of business development at Optum after announcing his retirement in February 2016.
Considering that Mayo was just getting his feet wet in the coaching ranks in 2019, did Kraft’s comments come as a surprise to him on Thursday?
“I wasn’t on the same page five years ago,” Mayo said Thursday when asked if he knew in 2019 that he was viewed as the heir apparent after Belichick. “So [Kraft] kept that one close to the vest.”
Recapping a rough night
Mayo didn’t mince words when it came to New England’s showing in their lone primetime game of the 2024 season on Thursday.
“I’ll be honest with you, Thursday, it was a very ugly day and ugly game,” Mayo said. “One thing we always hang our hat on is being able to control the line of scrimmage. You guys have heard me say it time to time again. Couldn’t do that.”
Little went right for New England on both sides of the ball, with the Patriots’ defense relinquishing 400 yards of offense and missing 13 tackles against Aaron Rodgers and the Jets’ offense.
But with New England’s banged-up O-line continuing to struggle, the Patriots have been unable to find any sort of cohesion on the offensive side of the ball. In total, New England’s offensive line surrendered seven sacks and 15 QB hits in Thursday’s loss.
“You’ve got 10 guys out there doing the right thing,” Mayo noted. “If one guy doesn’t do the right thing, then it’s a bad play, and it can cost you. I wish I had a crystal ball to tell guys when it’s going to be a huge play. And I just don’t have it. It’s important that we maintain our focus every single play.”
While play action has long been a staple of Alex Van Pelt’s systems, the Patriots’ inability to give Brissett any time to scan the field and operate has curtailed New England’s ability to generate big-yardage plays and keep defenses off balance.
New England’s longest play on offense on Thursday was a 34-yard defensive pass interference call drawn by Tyquan Thornton.
“We tried to get to the play-action game, because we have been running the ball so effectively,” Mayo explained. “And so we tried to get into that intermediate through the play-action game. It just didn’t work out. We couldn’t protect the quarterback, whether we’re talking about boot plays or play action or anything like that. And it was a struggle all game.
“And the more I learned about this team and our identity, the more you sit there and say, ‘We have to control the clock, we have to control the ball and the line of scrimmage.’ And that’s through running the ball. Now in saying that, we have to be able to throw the ball off of those run plays and keep teams off balance.”
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