On Thursday morning, Patriots offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt met with the media before his team’s practice at Gillette Stadium.
Van Pelt told the media that the Patriots had a team meeting earlier in the day, where professionalism and preparation were discussed with both players and coaches.
Phill Perry of NBC Sports Boston asked Van Pelt, “Do you feel as though everybody in that group is doing everything they can away from the field during the week, just in terms of taking care of themselves, doing what they need to do to be the best professionals they can be?”
“Yeah, we had a really great team meeting this morning where that was pointed out,” said Van Pelt. “Obviously at 1-6, it’s not good enough across the board for any of us. So we need to be better.
“We need to work harder, rehab harder, refresh better, take care of ourselves. We got to spend more time in the room. So, good meeting this morning, demanding more of everybody across the board.”
This meeting comes after a Wednesday in Foxborough that saw two different receivers make headlines for comments that would previously have Patriots fans wondering if former head coach Bill Belichick would trade the offending parties.
First up, K.J. Osborn.
When asked by Chris Mason of The Boston Herald if he wanted to be traded, the veteran wide receiver laughed, and said, "It's like an alley oop. This is where I am. This is the place I signed to be. A lot of things are out of my control, but I would like to be where my feet are. So today I'm here, so now I'll rock with it as it goes."
Next up, Kayshon Boutte.
“For me personally, in the game, I get frustrated when I’m not getting thrown the ball knowing that I’ve caught every ball that’s thrown to me this season,” the second-year receiver told the assembled media. “So, I just feel like I would always go to the sideline and demand the ball. So, whether it was that deep ball – I asked for that. The Texans game, I asked for that. So, I feel like I shouldn’t have to really ask.”
Two comments like that occurring in one day at 1 Patriot Place after a two-and-a-half days of non-stop media coverage of Jerod Mayo calling his team “soft,” it’s not hard to see why a meeting like this was necessary for a team that’s in the midst of the longest losing streak of the Kraft family’s ownership of the franchise.
“I think we all understand we’re frustrated,” said Van Pelt. “You know, nobody’s gonna be happy at 1-6. It’s just the reality of it. But I think that room, in particular, needs to keep the focus inward. We have a big game this week, all of our focus should be on how do we get a W on Sunday - it’s a very good opponent coming in.
“I understand the frustrations as a part of losing football. Best way to take care of that is to get a win. But I think our focus right now needs to be solely on the Jets, because it’s a challenge.”
Veteran wide receiver Kenrick Bourne told the media that the “elephant in the room” was addressed in the meeting, and echoed much of what his offensive coordinator said at the podium.
“Just trying to stay focused on, you know, what’s at task, and that’s beating the Jets,” said Bourne. “So it’s hard, you know, because we know there’s a lot of distractions, but really just trying to get refocused. That’s kind of what the emphasis of the meeting was.
When Bourne was asked specifically about his fellow wide receivers speaking publicly about their frustrations, he said, “It’s just staying focused on what’s important. And I think that’s where we’ve been failing is, you know, getting distracted by everything else and being too individualized. And, you know, football is the ultimate team sport, so it’s tough.
“As a leader, I just have to tell the young guys, from my experience, you know, how I’ve even gotten to this point was being a team guy - was just, you know, not thinking about myself all the time, and it’s tough. It’s not easy. So it’s easy to say, but it’s hard when you’re out there running 30 routes and you don’t get the ball sometimes. So there’s a happy medium where I have to understand where my teammates come from, but it’s also just trying to build that relationship to where, like, we can understand the place where I’m coming from when I tell them, and just everybody as a whole.
“So there’s vets in other rooms, and we have to tell the young guys, ‘This is what we’re trying to create, a team-oriented organization.’ And the more we can focus on that, the better we’ll be. But I think we’re just distracted in other areas.”
One of those vets in a different room is defensive back Jonathan Jones, the longest-tenured member of the Patriots defense.
When asked about this morning’s meeting, he said, “It was about time.”
Clearly the lead-by-example veteran was ready for a vibe shift, as he went on to say that he talked to the team a week prior about how leadership used to operate in the New England locker room.
He said, “I think it was last week, I kind of spoke on, you know, when I was a younger player, there was always a figure, and it’s usually the D-linemen or a linebacker, especially defense, just to have that presence to speak, to get guys to move, to understand that the urgency, the time is now.
“And so, sometimes you need those, and you don’t want to continue to have heart-to-hearts over and over, because at some point, it just becomes redundant. But at some point, you know, we have to wake up.”
Having a 2-5 Jets team on tap seems like the perfect time for a wake up call, but the bookmakers in Las Vegas don’t believe in the Patriots’ ability to rise up and meet the moment.
Both BetMGM and FanDuel currently list the Patriots as a 7-point home underdog against their struggling arch rival.