Jerod Mayo has coached just seven games in his debut season as the New England Patriots’ head coach. After taking over for Bill Belichick, he had big-time shoes to fill.
Through his first seven games, he has led the Patriots to a 1-6 record. After their latest loss, he chose to throw major shade at his players, calling them “soft.”
That statement has not landed well with many in the media or former coaches and teammates. Bill Belichick did not hestiate from firing back at Mayo’s comment. Now, a former teammate of Mayo’s has come out with some critical thoughts about the first-year head coach.
In a recent quote on NBC’s pregame show for Sunday Night Football, as shared by Ben Volin, Devin McCourty spoke out about Mayo and turned the criticism back on the head coach.
“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. 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.”
Devin McCourty didn’t go soft on his friend Jerod Mayo last night on the NBC pregame show. “What is the head coach doing?” pic.twitter.com/SbgEjYJ2aS
— Ben Volin (@BenVolin) October 21, 2024
Mayo’s comments have completely backfired on him. His intention was likely to motivate his players to play better, but tearing them down to accomplish that goal is not a good way to go about it.
Every first year head coach has growing pains. It’s not easy to adjust to having so much media attention and exactly how to handle each situation. Mayo is clearly going through those growing pains.
However, McCourty brings up a very valuable point. How is Mayo getting them prepared to play? Some of the blame has to fall on the head coach.
The fact that Mayo has not come out and shouldered some of the blame isn’t a great look either. He has turned all of the issues back onto the players.
It will be interesting to see how the rest of the season goes. Mayo has to learn from his media mistakes. That kind of comment should never be aired out in the media.
Hopefully, he’ll grow from this situation and be able to handle issues going forward in a much better way. All of the criticism from people Mayo has worked with and played with should be a major eye-opener for him.