On Friday, Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo met with the media ahead of his team’s final practice at Gillette Stadium before they depart for San Francisco to take on the 49ers (1-2) on Sunday.
As Friday press conferences have tended to do over the years in New England, topics skewed more big picture, and Mayo was asked what types of things he gleans from his offense when they’re out on the field as a defensive minded coach.
“Even a defensive minded or offensive minded coach kind of gets a little wonky in my head,” said Mayo. “What I would say is, football is football. The game is about space, and I try to explain that to the coaches. I try to explain it to the players, even my son - like, most of these team sports is about space.”
Spacing is a concept you hear talked about daily in the worlds of hockey and basketball.
Having proper spacing when cycling a puck.
Having players who can shoot the three on the floor to help with spacing out the offense.
Playing with “space and pace” on breakaways in both sports.
It’s used so much, spacing has almost become an overused term in both sports. As a sports fan, you almost want to tune it out when you hear a host or writer start clinging to spacing as a “key to victory” or a critique of a coaching staff.
Mayo tried to make the concept more interesting to the media on Friday by incorporating some of the other local teams in his answer.
“Obviously you can look at football - three-by-one is obviously about space,” said Mayo. “But the same thing in hockey. Like, sometimes I’ll watch hockey, and they’ll overload a side, and they’ll have a guy over here. Now, depending on who this guy is over here, you gotta make a choice defensively, right? Once again, it’s about space.
“If this is, let's say, just a superstar player over here in hockey –”
“Pastrňák,” interjected WBZ-TV’s Dan Roche from the front row.
“Oh, there we go!” said Mayo. “Honestly, I was like, ‘I have to name a Bruin,’ but thank you for that. Either you double-team this guy, but now you're light over here.”
Mayo went right from the ice to the hardwood.
“Same thing in basketball,” he continued. “So here you go - if you have Jayson Tatum over here versus someone who's not really a scorer, and we overload a side, you've got to make a choice. We're going to double-team Jayson Tatum and be short over here on the overload side, or we'll just try to play it straight, and this guy now has a 1-on-1.
“All these games, same thing in soccer, it's about space. Overload a side, cross it, do whatever, but it's about numbers and space.”
Mayo went on to say that these are the types of conversations he has with Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla, who was seen at Patriots practice recently chatting with coaches on the sidelines.
“Joe's been great,” said Mayo. “I think I told you guys - Joe and I, before he became the head coach, we had a relationship. He would sit in the defensive meetings, and we would talk about philosophical things, philosophy.
“Team sports are team sports. It's great.”
With all of that said, Mayo is taking an emphasis off of spacing for Week 4 at Levi’s Stadium.
“For the Niners, which you really don't see a lot of 21-personnel teams, but they have an outstanding fullback,” said Mayo. “I would say it's more about bodies with this team more than space. So, everyone's in there tight. But now they start to move the bodies.
“Going back to the matching troops for troops, you have to match those troops. So, even on the post-snap stuff - that's why you build it over here, now everyone's moving. But if they pull a guy back here post-snap, they've added now an extra person. I mean, it's a lot.”
Whether it’s about “spacing” or “bodies,” the 1-2 Patriots have a tall task ahead on Sunday.
Both BetMGM and FanDuel have New England listed as 10.5-point underdogs, the largest spread on the Week 4 slate. On the moneyline, BetMGM has the Patriots listed at +425, while FanDuel gives them longer odds at +440.
For the sake of Patriots fans, hopefully Mayo’s team is more-so channeling the championship-winning Celtics on Sunday rather than the playoff-choking Bruins.