DO PATRIOTS FANS HAVE TO GET USED TO LOSING?

Growing up in New England, there has only been one football team I’ve ever rooted for. That is none other than The New England Patriots. Now unless you have been under a rock, you know, the Patriots have been the best football team in years past. All good things must come to an end. Our win streak stopped when they lost some of the best players of my generation. Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman. The list could go on to underrated wide receivers like Chris Hogan, but the point is… the pats lost some great players since the Super Bowl winning team in 2017. 

Now we are going through what is called a “rebuilding year.” We have a new head coach, new offensive coordinator, new quarterback, again, the list goes on and on. Now when an NFL team that wins a lot suffers some great loss of staff and players, they tend to lose their season as well. The Patriots are no different than that. This year was seen as the year that everything was going to change with Head Coach Bill Belichick announcing his parting ways with the pats and former linebacker, Jerod Mayo as head coach. Mayo was a former defensive coordinator and worked exclusively with linebackers and during his five seasons with the pats the defense finished top 10 in four years. Mayo was a damn good defensive coach and player. However, this does not mean he should have been the new head coach and that’s why I think, as long as Mayo is head coach, this ‘rebuilding year’ will turn into a losing streak for the pats.

I have nothing against Mayo, he was great as a player, great as a defensive coordinator but so far he hasn’t proven he’s a good head coach. Especially for a team with as high of standards as the Patriots and us pats fans, aren’t used to losing and I do not think we’ll ever get used to it. Now the pats have gotten 18 false starts in the first half of the season alone. Last season the pats had 14 in the whole season. Mayo is not good at managing the clock and this shows in slow decisions to take a time out, resulting in false starts. Now, I will say, his decision to put Jacoby Brissett in as starting quarterback for the first games of the season. However the reason I get putting Brissett in instead of Drake Maye, (Even though Maye is the better QB) is because our offensive line is the worst it’s looked since the ‘90s. Now putting Brissett in to test the waters of our O-line was smart because putting Maye in the first game of the season would have been like throwing him right to the sharks. Thankfully since Maye knew what he was getting into, even though our O-line isn’t much better. Maye knows how to move inside the pocket and even run for some rushing yards. Our other offense is good, we have a good QB, our wide receivers and our tight ends are looking better every game but our O-line is just bad and Mayo isn’t doing anything about it. Same with our defensive line. He knows how to work with the defense and the linemen however why are they so bad this year? It’s because Mayo can coach the defense but not while he also is head coach. If he was to focus on the D-line that would be great and I’m sure our defense would improve. But it doesn’t mean anything if our Defense is great yet we can’t score for ourselves on the Offensive side of things. Mayo just doesn’t have the ball knowledge to be a head coach. 

Now disregarding actual knowledge. Growing up a pats fan, everyone learns there is a Patriot way. Belichick paved the way for the Patriot way. His no emotion face during games, his minimal comments for the press. No one knew what he was thinking. He was hard on the team but nice when he wanted to be. He was the greatest coach of all time. I’ll say it. He brought the pats to nine Super Bowls in the 23 years he coached there. The pats with Mayo, won’t be going to the Playoffs anytime soon let alone the Super Bowl. Mayo’s soft, lets the people know what he’s thinking, lets anyone get into his head. He was basically bullied into putting Maye in the game as QB. He also just doesn’t know how to lead. If the pats want to win they need someone who will lead them and Mayo is just not that guy. Maybe the pats need to take a note from the Bruins franchise and say bye bye and get a new head coach.