Pats have a toughness problem – NBC Sports Boston

In a season where wins have always been few and far between, this might have been the Patriots’ next must-win game.

The Patriots had a chance for a rare win against a fellow cellar dweller against the Jaguars in London. If they lost it, they would face a long and slow road to the end of a seemingly meaningless season.

The pressure was great. (As much pressure as there can be, at least in a game between one-win teams.) And the Patriots failed, embarrassed 32-16 at the international level.

This is what we learned…

Patriots have a toughness problem

From a soccer perspective, toughness in New England has long been defined by a team’s ability to A) run the ball, B) stop the run, and C) cover kicks.

That’s how Bill Belichick defined it during his time in office, and that’s how Jerod Mayo defines it now.

They went 0-3 in that regard against Jacksonville. The whiff was so obvious that Mayo pointed out those three elements – and his team’s no-show when it came to all three – almost as soon as he got behind a microphone after the game.

“We’re a soft football team across the board,” Mayo explained. “What makes a football team? That is the ability to run the ball, to be able to stop the run and that is the ability to cover kicks. And we didn’t do any of that today. “They controlled the ball most of the day.” Back to the drawing board.”

Jerod Mayo reacts to the Patriots’ 32-16 loss to the Jaguars in London. New England took an early 10-0 lead, but then left 25 unanswered points en route to their sixth straight loss.

The Patriots allowed the Jags to average 4.4 yards per carry on Sunday, for a total of 171 yards on the ground, in a performance that at one point included 17 consecutive carries. They knew the Patriots couldn’t get any stops on the ground, and they continued to hammer downhill run calls as they ran down the clock in the second half.

And if that wasn’t disappointing enough, the Patriots only gained 20 yards on 12 running back carries, an average of 1.7 per attempt. They also got hurt in the kicking game, which allowed a 96-yard punt return for a touchdown at the end of the second quarter.

The question now is how the Patriots respond to this performance. Can they fix their problems with schema changes or changes to the game prompt? Do you need to restructure your staff? Or is it something more intangible – attitude, focus, energy – that needs an overhaul?

A game like this, getting bullied by one of the worst teams in football, left the Patriots with more questions than answers in the immediate aftermath.

The players seem to support Mayo’s point of view

The Patriots players, meanwhile, seemed to agree with their head coach in hindsight.

“He kept us serious,” Kyle Dugger said. “And I’m glad he did.”

“Coach Mayo is not going to come in here and say anything he didn’t already tell us in the locker room,” Drake Maye said. “We’re not tough… I think he’s doing a great job of getting the message across to us. And the boys know… We have to find something. What we are doing is not enough. We have to man up.”

Drake Maye responds to Jerod Mayo calling the Patriots a “soft team” after they fell to 1-6 this season with a loss to the Jaguars in London.

“He said it well. We have to look in the mirror and understand what it says,” said Jahlani Tavai. “And if we’re okay with being soft, some people will fall away and the rest of us who want to prove we’re wrong will stand up and make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Jerod just said that everyone needs to check their ego when they come in,” Daniel Ekuale told the Boston Herald. “And I agree with him. I feel like a lot of guys have too much of themselves and need to check their ego and just play as a team. I feel like when we play as a team, no one can stop us. But “If we go out there and do our own thing and play outside the mold, we’re going to get beat.”

Of course, there may be players in the locker room who don’t like the head coach’s words. Especially if they have concerns about the positions their coaches assigned them in their recent loss.

But Tavai and Ekuale’s comments seem to suggest that there is some division in the dressing room between those who want to do the right thing and those who want to do their own thing. That in itself presents another challenge for Mayo and his staff. This team is not good enough or good enough to eliminate any kind of dysfunction behind the scenes.

Doug Pederson should thank the Patriots

Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson looked like he had 10 minutes left when team owner Shad Khan informed him he was being relieved of his duties.

The Patriots got off to the brilliant start they had hoped for and took a 10-0 lead with a touchdown to open the game, which they extended into the second quarter. Then the wheels came off.

After an eight-play touchdown drive, the Jags forced a four-and-out and quickly took the field thanks to a 58-yard completion from Trevor Lawrence to Brian Thomas Jr. Suddenly they were in the lead.

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Four plays later, after another stalled Patriots drive that saw Hunter Henry run offsides on third down, they got their 96-yard punt return score. After another extra point penalty – this time a Tavai violation in the neutral zone – the Jags went for two and were successful.

Instead of Pederson losing his job at halftime, he was the proud owner of a 22-10 lead. New England’s loss of a double-digit lead led to Jacksonville’s highest-scoring quarter in seven years.

The run has not been set up

While Alex Van Pelt’s opening script was far more successful than his initial play instructions in Week 6 against Houston, the game was a headache from then on.

Early in the game, the Patriots completed 10 passes to Maye while scoring just two runs. Eleven plays and 68 yards later, JaMycal Hasty found himself in the end zone and caught a short, lightning-quick throw from Maye for 16 yards and a score.

From there, the Patriots scored eight more times in the first half. The result? A loss of two yards. Facing a double-digit deficit in the second half, the Patriots only attempted five more rushing attempts the remainder of the game.

Still, the damage from the failed runs in the first half must have been painful. After a field goal by Joey Slye on their second drive of the game, the Patriots scored three times on first down in the second quarter – for -1, 1 and -4 yards – which helped lead to three straight punts.

Handed the game to Jacksonville

While Maye wasn’t the problem (more on him in a moment), the Patriots still had their issues in the passing game. Ja’Lynn Polk, whose football-catching problems have plagued him for weeks now, had three potential completions in his hands. Kendrick Bourne also had a crossover hit on the gloves and an incomplete fall, turning a potential touchdown drive into a Slye field goal attempt.

The Patriots were partially limited by DeMario Douglas’ illness, which forced their best playmaker at that position off the field. But it’s worth wondering why Kayshon Boutte didn’t see more targets in this case. He finished the game with two balls, intercepted a fade down the sideline for 33 yards and incurred a nine-yard pass interference penalty.

Polk, meanwhile, had three goals that didn’t result in a catch, and he slipped on the Wembley Stadium turf and fell during a possible two-pointer.

The boy looked good again

Maye showed off his high-end potential in his first start against the Texans, but his final performance might have been better. There were still the signs of his eye-opening physical abilities – he scrambled for 15 yards, he found Hunter Henry for a 12-yard pickup in a scramble drill situation, he threw one in the bucket to Boutte and he fired a fastball that went off to KJ Osborn for his second touchdown pass of the day – but his misses also seemed to be fewer.

He wasn’t perfect. Maye almost threw two picks; one was dropped by the Jaguars and one was well broken up by Osborn. But the rookie finished the game without a turnover and made an exhilarating play to get the ball to Hasty for a touchdown as he stared down an unblocked rusher during the game’s opening drive.

Maye finished the game 26 of 37 for 276 yards and two touchdowns, giving him a rating of 109.7, which would have been a setback had his teammates been safer.

Gonzalez looked exhausted

Was Christian Gonzalez tired after the transatlantic flight and the early kick-off time? Even if that wasn’t the case, he definitely had his hands full pursuing rookie first-rounder Brian Thomas Jr.

We thought it could go like this.

This looked to be a challenging week for Gonzalez, even though Thomas wasn’t quite as big of a name as some of the other receivers Gonzalez shut down in his first few seasons. And that was it.

Thomas briefly outran Gonzalez on his 58-yard catch in the second quarter. While Gonzalez did an excellent job of getting Thomas back on his hip – putting his hand on the football as Thomas caught up to him – the Jags still ended up with an explosive lead that put them in position to score .

Gonzalez was also with Thomas when Lawrence found the LSU product for a two-point conversion moments later.