Just when this Patriots season was beginning to look a little brighter, with Drake Maye’s above-average start against the Houston Texans in Week 6, the off-the-field antics have intensified once again.
In an interview with Mark Daniels of MassLive, rookie Patriots receiver Ja’Lynn Polk responded to his coach’s mild criticism of his dropped passes by insisting he had “the best hands in the league.”
Sure, it’s good for everyone to have self-confidence, but a rookie wide receiver, whose limited playing time has been just ‘meh’ so far, probably should not be writing checks he can’t cash in defiance of his coach to a beat reporter.
“Catch the football,” Greg Hill said Thursday on WEEI. “Stop whining about it, stop blaming everybody else.”
It’s a far cry from the Patriots of years past where public comments like that might be met with punishment from Bill Belichick. Under Jerod Mayo players are free to speak their mind about how poorly the offense is being run.
“Last year you didn't have the dysfunction of players complaining publicly about what's going on with the game plan, their roles, those types of things,” Jermaine Wiggins said.
Some of this complaining and dysfunction can be written off as byproducts of bad teams. But, not for the Patriots, Wiggy believes, given that the Patriots have had multiple bad seasons lately but never this many players acting up.
“Where they are right now, they're basically a similar team [to last season] except with the dysfunction of players complaining about their roles and playing time,” Wiggy said.
“At this point [last year], there was no dysfunction of guys complaining publicly, via the media or social media.”
There were points in recent years where anonymous leaks would filter out of Foxborough, but these were rarely directly attributed to Patriots players.
“We were told during this time [last season] that there were leaks from the locker room saying that some people were not on board with Mac,” Courtney Cox said.
“But that was, you know, anonymous sources. Now we have guys saying it with their names behind it. That’s the difference,” Cox continued.
This leniency on public comments comes directly from changes brought about by Mayo.
“He said it on this show,” Hill said. “‘I’m not going to tell guys what to say,’ right? So if you want to go and complain about the organization and point the finger at the coaches and the coordinators, that’s fine with him.”
Hill wonders how Foxborough believes that’s a winning strategy.
“How does that work, though? How does that help when it comes to being functional?” Hill asked.
To make matters worse, the Patriots seem to be handling their internal strife the way a dysfunctional married couple might. First, they brought in a child, i.e., rookie quarterback Drake Maye. Now, they’re going on a European vacation.
Hopefully it works better for them than it has for others.