The New England Patriots put forth another atrocious performance on Sunday, falling to the Jacksonville Jaguars by a score of 32-16 in London.
Afterward, Patriots wide receiver Kendrick Bourne made some rather pointed comments in which he appeared to call out his teammates for a lack of commitment.
“Yeah, there’s certain things we need to figure out that’s within,” Bourne said, via Andrew Callahan of The Boston Herald. “That’s how the energy feels. There’s something else that is contributing to us having low energy.”
Bourne, who logged just one catch for 14 yards in the loss, then went on to say that New England’s players need to engage in some self-reflection moving forward.
“There’s self-evaluating we need to do,” he said. “I don’t know who specifically. It’s just as a group, it feels like that. Just how I operate, I can feel it. So that’s just where I see we can be a lot better.”
The Pats have now lost six games in a row after surprisingly winning their season opener. The losing skid resulted in head coach Jerod Mayo calling the team “soft” after the Jaguars defeat. Plus, some of the players appear to be getting frustrated.
To be fair, the Patriots aren’t exactly a talented group. Their offensive line is porous, they don’t have a lot of weapons and it’s clear their defense is severely lacking.
But obviously, Bourne feels that there is something else going on, and it seems like he is attributing it to a lack of effort.
This is certainly not something Patriots fans are accustomed to seeing. After all, New England won six Super Bowl championships between 2001 and 2018. But the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era is over, and now, the Pats have to figure out life without them.
So far, the adjustment period is not going too smoothly.