On Sunday, the Patriots had their first blowout loss since their trip to London in Week 7, as they got demolished by the Dolphins in Week 12 at Hard Rock Stadium 34-15.
It was an incredibly sloppy game for the team, with 10 accepted penalties against them for a loss of 75 yards.
In his postgame press conference, Mayo made it clear that at a certain point, there’s only so much he can do for his team.
“Look, once those guys cross the white lines, there’s nothing I can do for them,” said Mayo. “There’s nothing any coach can do for them once they cross the white lines. It’s my job to continue to prepare not only them, but our coaches, to go out there and play better football.”
This comment drew criticism across the board, as both fans and media alike saw this as Mayo shirking the blame for his team’s unfocused performance.
This was especially eyebrow-raising, given that a team’s flag count is almost always attributed to how well they’ve been coached. Here locally, Bill Belichick received credit for 20+ years for his team’s ability to keep their penalties to a minimum.
So with Mayo’s weekly interview with The Greg Hill Show on tap for Monday, it was fair to assume the first-year head coach would use the radio appearance as an opportunity to walk back these postgame comments, as he’s wont to do.
Not so fast!
“We’ve been talking about your comments after [the loss],” said WEEI’s Courtney Cox. “About once the guys cross the white lines, there’s really nothing you can do for them when it comes to penalties. And then you brought up the fact that you just need to prepare them every single week. Do you feel like every week when you’re going into the game that they are prepared to not make those mistakes? How do you make sure to up-that as the head coach when it comes to practicing, to make sure that this isn’t a repeating issue?”
“You know, I’ve always said in the media, even when I was a player - oh, I should say going back to when I was a coach in ’19 when I first started - is that, once you cross the white lines, like, it’s your game,” said Mayo. “There’s nothing I can do - like, I try to give you the tools, you have to go out there with high awareness and execute what we’re trying to do.
“I’ve always said that, and if we would’ve won the game, it looks like a compliment. We lose the game, now it looks like a slap in the face. But if you were to ask any of those players, I say that all the time.”
So within the white lines, according to Mayo, it’s on his players to clean it up. And when it comes to Sunday’s loss, Mayo knows a clean up is needed.
“I would say if you take that game - yeah, that was a sloppy game, and it starts with the penalties,” said Mayo. “Look, the post-snap penalties, you can, you know, sometimes go back and forth. It’s the operational penalties and the lack of focus that really frustrate me and I know frustrate the team.”
With Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday changing his team’s regular off-day, Mayo and the Patriots will continue their cleanup process when they return to practice on Tuesday.