Here’s what Jerod Mayo had to say following the New England Patriots’ 19-3 win over the Bears on Sunday in Chicago:
OPENING STATEMENT:
“Good afternoon. It’s always good to come in here after a victory. I thought the guys really answered the challenge that we had all during the week. Talked about having a physical Wednesday, and I think that showed up today, really in all three phases. But offensively, we were able to really deliver those body blows that we talked about and really staying ahead of the sticks. The prior week, there’s a lot of second and long situations that really took us off track. I would say defensively, especially on the interior piece, for the most part, and look, there are things to correct. I thought the guys played well in the run game.”
“Defensively, I would say we were able to get pressure. We were able to get pressure on the quarterback. We had nine sacks in the game, which is always good. I would say the back-end did a good job as far as coverage is concerned. Offensively, going to talk about the run game. Look, Drake still continues to go out there and make plays. He’s going to make mistakes, but this is part of his evolution, it’s part of his growth and development. Then special teams, it was kind of shaky there at the beginning, but I would say as we were able to settle down, it was good.”
“I just wanted to send a… I thought the coordinators did an excellent job the entire week, not only reiterating the message that I said in the squad meeting rooms, but also just putting together a good game plan and knowing how we have to win football games. That’s through controlling the line of scrimmage and kind of talked about that.”
On what his team do so well defensively? 142 total yards, only 11 first downs and the nine sacks, what did they do well today?
“It starts up front. It starts up front. I think that’s what we have to do. We have to go out there and reestablish the line of scrimmage, and we were able to do that in all three downs.”
On what they did with [Brendan] Schooler, it seemed like he was in the spy technique, and if that was another wrinkle they had:
“That’s our ‘Longhorn’ package. Our ‘Longhorn’ package. We’ve done things like that before. Again, we talk about ‘next man up.’ Now you got a guy who was primarily a special teams player making contributions. It’s probably his first sack ever in his career. But he’s fast, he’s athletic, and he’s a football player. We try not to put anyone in a box, and I’m not going to put him in one.”
On the fact the broadcast said that Drake [Maye] asked AVP [Alex Van Pelt] if he could address the offense this week, what he knows about that, and what that says about Drake?
“Look, Drake has addressed the offense numerous times. I think this … It goes back to now he’s starting to really take control of the offense and the team. When you go out there and you perform at a high level, that’s the first step. The next step is to bring others with you, and I think he’s on his way to doing that.”
On how much coverage played a factor in the 9 sacks:
“Coverage was huge. All of those guys in the back-end. Again, we had the young safeties out there, and Gonzo continues to play at a very high level. I’d also say Jon Jones. He’s one of those guys. You can put him as a slot corner, put him outside, put him in the back-end. Just a veteran player that, again, goes in that box of ‘he’s a football player,’ and wherever you ask him to go, he’ll go out there and try to perform.
On how much, in his mind, this game hinged on just stopping Caleb Williams from being able to scramble?
“Oh, that was definitely a huge part of it. We’ve said that if you were to take away just our third down penalties, and our third down, letting the quarterback out of the pocket over the course of the season, we would be much better. I would say today, I think they had one third down conversion, not necessarily sure what it was, and then one fourth down conversion. Look, again, that’s the recipe, and we just have to be patient enough to do it on a down after down basis.
On Drafting and developing, and the fact they got a lot of contributors from young players today, and how much of that is a reflection of the playing time they’ve received over the first half of the season:
“I’m not sure. I mean, look, those guys, they work hard. They come to work every day. They go on the practice field, and they try to get better. It doesn’t always show up on game day. Fortunately for us, it showed up today.”
On the fact it’s been a little bit of battle for Ja’lynn Polk, and how nice it was to see him get that touch down, and the fact he got greeted by coaches, players, everybody coming off the field:
“It was great. It was great. With young players, you never know where that inflection point is going to come. You never know when that switch is going to flip. Hopefully, this is the start of him being a very good receiver in this league. We never doubted him in the locker room and I think that’s important. It’s been a lot of outside noise, and he’s had to deal with the outside noise. But when it’s all said and done, if you go out and do it on the field, there’s not much people can say.”
On the fact he talked about putting the players out there that give you the best chance to win at receiver, along with the fact they got a lot of receivers today but we didn’t see Kendrick [Bourne] and if it was because just practice KJ, performed better and what the thought process was:
“There was a lot that went into that. Anytime we put the active roster together, you said it, we thought that that was the best thing to do for us to give us the best chance to win. All those guys bring a certain skill set to the game. We just didn’t know who was going to play more, and it just played out that way. But I would say this, even though Bourne didn’t play today, he was the first one smiling when I walked in the locker room, and I’ve always appreciated that, just his energy and excitement. Same thing with KJ and the rest of those guys. Sometimes, even when they’re inactive, just the excitement for their teammates. We talk about abundance versus scarcity, abundance versus scarcity, and having that mindset of abundance where we can all eat versus scarcity, if you have that scarcity mindset, you don’t want your teammate to do well because it’s only a certain amount of the pie. What I will say, the mindset of this team is that if we go out there, there are enough plays to be made for all of us. We just got to go out and execute. I know that was a long answer, but I thought I was going to get philosophical.”
On the way they ended the first half, clock management, and being able to execute in that situation?
“Yeah, situational football has definitely been a strength of ours, especially over the last few weeks, the different situations that show up depending on the clock and the score and the timeout situation. I would say, again, we were ahead of the game, and it’s great to see when it comes to fruition.”
On if he feels like he learned something more about his team today or proved something to everyone else watching them:
“To me, the only people I’m really concerned with are the people in that locker room. I’ve always known that these guys, they’re going to give great effort no matter what. That’s why Wednesday, we talk about changing the page, win, lose, or draw. I think that’s a good mindset to have. You can’t get too high, can’t get too low. I would say that’s the leadership all the way to the players, and they’ve done that.”
On his thoughts on Joey Slye:
“Joey Slye? Hey, huge. To go out there and be 4-for-4, to have a new baby at home, less than a week old, in little Palmer. I would throw Jalahni Tavai in there as well. His fiancé had a baby a couple of days ago. ‘Honua’. I think I said that right, and it means Earth in that language. But it means a lot. Anytime a kicker goes out there and kicks – he’s perfect – there’s nothing I can say bad about that.”
On the fact Caleb Williams has struggled the last few games, and what he saw from him today in his performance versus maybe earlier this season with the tape he saw ahead of this game:
“I still believe that Caleb Williams will be a very good player in this league. But just like any rookie, he’s going to go through his ups and downs. It doesn’t matter what position you play, but he’ll be a special player. He’s just got to stick to it.”
“Thanks, guys.
(Editor’s Note: This transcript is done via the available footage and is subject to typos. If you spot something, please take a moment to let me know in the comments below.)
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
The Bears will be upset at the result.
Da Bears with thier offensive line injuries were debatably about in the same spot the pats were end of September. Can’t block. To much net change week to week. It doesn’t matter if you have 3 solid WR and an excellent TE ( like the Bears do)if you can’t function on the line. The pats are a little more stabilized now.