A day later, coach Jerod Mayo wasn’t interested in discussing the mood in the locker room after the New England Patriots’ latest loss, this one a 34-15 blowout by the Miami Dolphins that thwarted whatever momentum this 3-9 team felt it was building.
The locker room afterward wasn’t an overly somber place, perhaps because the players had already had several hours to process it — since the game felt over by halftime when they were down 24-0. It was clear the result wore on rookie quarterback Drake Maye, who sat alone at his locker, still wearing his jersey and digesting it all. He said he told teammates to “remember this feeling of getting our butts whupped” because of the changes and turnaround he’s hoping to bring. But the rest of the locker room wasn’t quite as frustrated — or at least didn’t outwardly show it.
But Mayo pushed back on the narrative that the players didn’t care.
“I don’t question any of that stuff as far as the players taking a butt-kicking like that personally,” Mayo said. “Everyone in that locker room, we were down. Now, I’m not sure what that report is, but I’m not going to talk about that. I know the guys were disappointed.”
LIVE: Jerod Mayo Press Conference 11/25: https://t.co/r00wyMyZgm
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) November 25, 2024
Whether the locker room was sad enough probably doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The players know this team isn’t very good. They’re professionals. Throwing tables and yelling isn’t going to make up for the fact the Patriots are at a severe talent disadvantage every time they step on the field.
The big-picture feeling for this franchise after the latest loss isn’t anger, sadness or frustration. It’s resignation. Everyone knows where the Patriots are headed. The ugly truth for this team is that little matters in the final five games.
Sure, watching Maye is fun, and his continued development is important for the future of this team. And there will be meaningful storylines that pop up, like Christian Barmore’s return from blood clots and whether Ja’Lynn Polk can get his rookie season on the right track. But for the most part, there’s resignation about the season and where it’s going.
“I’m not really looking out of the front windshield that far yet,” Mayo said when asked about whether there are aspects of these final five games he can take into 2025. “What I will say is we’re all being evaluated. Coaches, players, we’re all being evaluated, and these next few weeks are definitely important. My message to the players is, ‘Look, let’s pour everything we have into this over these next couple of months and go out there and play good ball.’”
Though there’s plenty of frustration from the fans, the reality is the Patriots almost certainly aren’t firing Mayo for one bad season. They always knew this would be a tough first season for the new regime.
But the Patriots have compounded their talent deficiency by being outcoached in too many games.
The goal was always to improve, figure out which players they could build around and set a standard for the team’s culture. The outlook on those tasks isn’t great.
Mayo said Monday there has been improvement, but the numbers indicate the upgrade is largely the result of inserting Maye into the starting lineup for Jacoby Brissett. In the first six weeks, the Patriots ranked 23rd defensively in expected points added per play. Over the last six weeks, they rank 24th in that stat.
“I think the team has definitely gotten better,” Mayo said. “You take the Miami game out and look at the last four, we’ve done a lot of good things.
“Now, we know that the NFL can come down to one play. What I tell the guys all the time is most of the time people think getting better and success is just like this,” Mayo said while motioning his hand in an upward slope. “But really it’s an up-and-down, up-and-down type of thing. You just have to continue to chip at the rock. We have a lot of young players in there that are developing, and hopefully, we’ll be good going forward.”
There’s another tough aspect for the Patriots, which is that even if this season isn’t necessarily about team improvement (in terms of focusing on their win-loss record), it is important to see individual improvement, especially among young players.
Has that happened?
Kayshon Boutte has improved from last year, but he has still recorded only 289 yards and has the seventh-highest drop percentage in the NFL, according to Pro Football Focus. Keion White might be better than a year ago, but even he has just one sack in the last 10 games. And there aren’t many other candidates.
What’s especially troubling is that the roster is so bad, Mayo seems to feel he can’t bench the players who are struggling due to the lack of talent behind them.
“That’s a fair assessment,” Mayo said on his WEEI radio appearance Monday when asked whether he’d be coaching differently if there were more feasible backup options.
That’s how you end up with Vederian Lowe continuing to hold his first-string left tackle job Sunday even after committing four first-half penalties. Amazingly, he wasn’t even the team’s worst offensive tackle on the day, as Demontrey Jacobs managed to one-up him by allowing nine pressures on 36 dropbacks.
Now the Patriots need third-round pick Caedan Wallace to look decent at right tackle when he returns from injury. If that happens and Cole Strange plays adequately at center, it can at least boost the O-line’s outlook for 2025.
For now, 12 games into another lost season, these are the kinds of things we’ll be paying attention to down the stretch. Because right now, it feels like the Patriots are in purgatory, just waiting for the offseason to arrive and bring with it an influx of talent and optimism.
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(Photo of Jerod Mayo: Megan Briggs / Getty Images)
