Jerod Mayo Addresses Patriots ‘Biggest Issue’
New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo was a Pro Bowl linebacker during his NFL career, so it’s not surprising that the Patriots’ poor defensive performance against the New York Jets on Thursday night irritated him.
New England missed 14 tackles in a 24-7 loss to the Jets, and afterward, Mayo had some very candid opinions about the ineptiude.
“It was very uncharacteristic,” Mayo said Keagan Stiefel of NESN.com. “It’s one of the things I’m very disappointed in as a defensive minded head coach — especially the second level.”
Mayo led the league with 174 tackles in 2010, so he knows how to effectively wrap up a ball carrier.
“The biggest issue, in my opinion, was tackling,” Mayo told reporters. “We couldn’t tackle. We did not tackle. We hadn’t had that problem until now, so we need to fix it. It came down to tackling the ball carriers and dominating the line of scrimmage, which we’ve done up to this point, and we just need to improve.
The Patriots were without top linebacker Ja’Whaun Bentley, so that was obviously a role. The problem is that Bentley will be sidelined for the rest of the season, so the Patriots must sort this out.
Overall, New England allowed New York 400 yards of total offense, with touchdowns in each of the first three quarters. The Jets recorded 27 first downs compared to the Patriots’ 11 and held the ball for more than 40 minutes.
Furthermore, the Patriots enabled Gang Green to convert 10-of-15 third-down opportunities.
Things will not get much easier for the Patriots next Sunday, when they travel to face the San Francisco 49ers.
