In typical “Mayo Monday” fashion, Patriots first-year head coach Jerod Mayo was walking back postgame comments on The Greg Hill Show.
This week, it was offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt that was in the crosshairs of Mayo’s most recent fumbling of words.
“Did you consider running Drake [Maye] in that situation - that it’s a short yardage situation, you feel like he can run?” Phil Perry of NBC Sports Boston asked Mayo during Sunday’s postgame press conference, referencing the consecutive stops on 3rd and 1 and 4th and 1 by Arizona from the Cardinals 4 yard line at the top of the fourth quarter in his team’s 30-17 loss in Week 15.
“Uh, that’s - you said it, I didn’t,” Mayo responded flatly, quickly moving on to the next question.
For the next 12 hours, Patriots Twitter was ablaze, as it looked like Mayo was, yet again, pointing the finger at someone else for the missteps of his operation. We’ve heard Mayo call his team soft (walked back), we’ve heard him say he can’t help his team once they “cross the white line” (walked back), and now we’re hearing a pretty direct shot at the play calling of his offensive coordinator.
This comment poured gasoline on the already-viral clip of Jonathan Kraft from yesterday’s telecast, where lip readers were able to point out the team president’s obvious frustration from his suite at State Farm Stadium on Sunday.
So when it came time for Mayo to make his weekly “Patriots Monday” appearance on WEEI, the rookie head coach was ready for a walk-back before the interview even started.
“You came in a little hot this morning,” said WEEI’s Greg Hill.
“No, I did come in hot this morning,” said Mayo. “Because the remark that I made last night - like you said, I didn’t mean anything by it. Maybe a flippant response, and I tried to clarify that with the next question, saying, ‘Ultimately, it’s my decision.’
“Ultimately, all of those decisions - offensively, defensively and special team fall on me. And so, I just wanna get that out there.”
“I guess there’s some who feel like that there’s this narrative out there that, at times, you are pointing the finger in different directions, when it comes to the result not being what it could be,” Hill followed up.
“Like what?” Mayo asked.
“Like, people point to you and the the infamous “soft player” comment, “soft team” comment,” said Hill.
“Right now, everyone says that,” Mayo joked.
“You’re ahead of the curve!” WEEI’s Chris Curtis jumped in.
Hill got back in with another example for Mayo, saying, “You know, ‘I can’t coach these guys when they’re out there on the field, it’s on them when they get out there.’ Like, that -”
“And those are the things that the players have heard me say,” Mayo interrupted. “Who, ultimately, that’s who I care about the most. I have said that since I was a position coach, the exact same thing.
“So you know, I mean it’s the world we live in, and it’s the different seat that I’m sitting in. I understand that, and look - people are gonna take it how they want to take it. When I’m talking to football players, the guys in that room, the men in that room, they understand when I say, ‘Look, you’re on the field, I’m not.’ Like, I try to give you the tools, go out there and use them. And the results sometimes - look, if we would’ve won the game, going back to that statement, then everyone would be like, ‘Oh yeah, you know, the players went out there and got it done.’ But we, unfortunately, lost the game, and it’s me throwing them under the bus, which is not true.”
“So your intent was not to throw Alex Van Pelt under the bus?” Hill followed-up, refocusing the conversation back to the topic at hand.
“100% no,” said Mayo.
“Did you speak to him afterwards?” asked Hill.
“I did speak to him,” said Mayo. “I spoke to him this morning, because I didn’t even think about that it was going to be a big story today. I spoke to him this morning, and he’s just like, ‘Yeah, what are you talking about?’”
“So your intent was to say, what?” asked Hill.
“Look, there was no - look, he asked the question,” said Mayo. “I didn’t want to go down the rabbit hole of trying to explain for the next 10 minutes, after we just lost the game, about how that whole process went down.
“I just said, ‘you said it,’ to try to end the question. And look, I shouldn’t have done that. And, again, just like I tell the players - I’m still learning how those things work.”
Make sure to tune-in next Monday for the latest edition of “Clearing Things Up with Jerod Mayo!”
It’ll come after a Week 16 battle with the Buffalo Bills (11-3), who are 7-2 against the Patriots since the start of the 2020 season.
FanDuel currently lists New England as a 14.5-point road dog heading into their first of two meetings with MVP-favorite Josh Allen.