Former Pats Teammate Blasts Jerod Mayo for Poor Leadership as Coach

The 2024 season is starting to go off the rails for first-year head coach Jerod Mayo and the New England Patriots. On Sunday, New England suffered its sixth consecutive loss, falling 32-16 to the Jacksonville Jaguars in London.

It was an embarrassing performance from the Pats, who started the game with a 10-0 lead, but were outscored by the Jags 32-6. After the loss, Mayo didn’t mince his words about the team’s performance calling them “soft,” which caused a bit of a stir on social media from the fan base.

However, the fanbase wasn’t the only people to chime in about Mayo’s comments. His former teammate and Patriots legend Devin McCourty gave his two cents on NBC’s pregame show for Sunday Night Football.

“The first thing I think of is toughness isn’t a skillset. You don’t need to be fast or do anything special to be tough,” McCourty said (h/t Ben Volin of the Boston Globe). 

“The second part of that is, why Jerod? Why is this team not tough? When you hear a team isn’t tough and they are soft, ‘What is the head coach doing?’ How is he getting them ready to go? Mayo and that staff have a lot of questions to answer going in next week.”

McCourty isn’t wrong in his synopsis of the situation in New England. Anytime a coach mentions that their team is soft, that's usually an indication of something that the coach and his staff aren’t doing.

That was the sentiment on social media from the fanbase, as the fans placed the blame solely on Mayo’s shoulders following his comments. After getting trounced the last two weeks by the Houston Texans and Jaguars, the Patriots must decide what team they will be in Week 8 against the New York Jets.

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