Five Monday Patriots Thoughts: Mayo Has a Serious Problem
Demarcus Covington is becoming a big question mark for this New England Patriots' defense.
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Some thoughts coming off of yesterday’s embarrassing New England Patriots’ loss in Miami:
1) Patriots got out-coached again Sunday: The Patriots may have made it interesting at the end, but the 24 points they allowed in the second quarter were glaring. The worst part about that stretch was the fact it was almost less about how the defense played and more about the fact it looked that bad because of the coaches’ inability to help them adjust.
This is the second straight week where it truly felt like they were badly out-coached, and it’s a trend that is beginning to become extremely frustrating. Mike McDaniel and the Miami Dolphins staff clearly saw whatever it was that the Patriots were doing to start the game, and then switched things up, which opened the floodgates.
From there, Demarcus Covington and Jerod Mayo weren’t able to see it in real time and help put their guys in a position to slow the Dolphins down.
Following the opening drive where the Patriots forced a punt, Miami went on to score on four-straight possessions, scoring three touchdowns and capping off the half with a field goal. Over that span, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa went 20-of-27 for 247 yards and three touchdowns, and easily had his way with a Patriots defense that felt powerless to do anything about it.
That capped off a second quarter scoring spree where Miami’s offense essentially put this one well out of reach at halftime.
Fortunately, New England came out of the locker room in the second half and seemingly had a better handle on what Miami was doing, but by then, it was too late.
The Patriots may have gotten this one back to a two-score deficit thanks to some heroics by Drake Maye, but this one was never competitive, and that’s a serious indictment on a coaching staff that has the majority of starters back from a year ago yet their unit looks like a shell of a group that was among the best in the league when it came to opponents scoring in 2023.
2) Patriots need a defensive playcaller: One thing that stands out is the fact that while Mayo and Covington may be smart defensive minds, neither seems to be able to get a handle on things in real time.
I get it. That’s not a strength that everyone has, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m better at looking things over after the fact than I am at picking up on things during the flow of the game. That’s a strength certain people have, and my brain is more numbers-based. I track each play on the stat sheet during the game for the site’s stat database, and I’m far better at noticing trends on a spreadsheet than I am at seeing things on the field. At least not until I get a second look at it after the game.
But I’m not a coach, and the two people in charge feel like they share that weakness. And it absolutely feels like it’s a serious problem right now.
Mayo feels like someone who has a better grasp of things from a 30,000 feet view, which is all well and good. But for that to work, he needs to surround himself with guys who can at least fill in the gaps. And that’s going to be why he’ll continue to be under the microscope because, as he said several times after the game, all of this “falls on” him.
Steve Belichick seemed to have a good knack at not only seeing things but anticipating them before they happened, which allowed him to put his guys in situations to succeed. That’s something his dad, Bill Belichick, had, which fell under the radar with his son, largely due to his dad’s reputation as one of the best defensive coordinators in the NFL prior to when he took over as head coach.
But even as a head coach, Belichick was a master of seeing what was going on, immediately formulating countermoves, and then pulling his guys aside to make the changes and convey whatever adjustments they were making.
That usually led to positive results, and very rarely did we ever see a game get out of hand. That’s happened on multiple occasions just this season, and it feels like it’s a serious weakness from a staff who if they’re facing smart offensive coaches, just aren’t able to react fast enough.
I have little doubt when it comes to their ability to understand how to deal with an offense and formulate a plan. But reacting in real-time feels like it’s a problem, and if any changes come this offseason, especially if this continues, Covington’s future is going to have to come into question as it doesn’t feel like he’s capable of doing that based on what we’ve seen.
The most frustrating part of this is the fact that there’s still some deflection by Mayo on the players, which he did again yesterday.
“Look, once those guys cross the white lines, there’s nothing I can do for them,” said Mayo. “There’s nothing any coach can do for them once they cross the white line. It’s my job to continue to prepare not only them, but our coaches to go out here and better football.”
The problem Mayo has is there’s a previous point of reference between the performance of many of his best players before this season, and the one we saw on Sunday. Many of those guys were out of position way too many times, and it’s hard to believe that smart veterans like Jonathan Jones and others have suddenly become irresponsible football players who don’t know what they’re doing.
Unfortunately, that’s an indictment on the guys who haven’t put their guys in situations to succeed in recent weeks. It’s also going to be something to keep an eye on heading into these remaining five games.
3) Penalties are getting out of hand: Coming into Sunday’s game the Patriots had committed at least one third-down penalty in every game this season, with this one also adding to the list of times they’ve been flagged multiple times on third down in 2024.
New England has now been flagged on third down multiple times in all but three games this season, with last week’s bout against the Rams marking the first time they had been flagged just once on third down since their Week 2 match-up against Seattle.
However, they were flagged three times on third down on Sunday (they also had another that was declined), marking the fifth time this season they’ve been flagged that many times on third down. That’s an unbelievable trend that has obviously played a key role in their problems in Mayo’s first year as head coach.
Both tackles Vederian Lowe and Demontrey Jacobs were the culprits in this game, with both players coming into this week tied for the team lead in penalties with five. Lowe was flagged twice early in this one with a false start penalty, while Jacobs was also flagged for a false start in front of a home crowd that was loud and made things tough on the visitors.
Overall Lowe added another false start penalty and was flagged four times on Sunday, adding an offensive holding penalty to his list of errors. Jacobs was also flagged for holding, and was struggling on his side so badly late in this contest that Sidy Sow came in during the second half and finished the game at right tackle.
“Yeah, he was having a tough game,” said Mayo of Jacobs. “Whether it’s penalties or blocking the edge, he was having a tough game. And we got to protect the quarterback as an offensive linemen. That’s what we do. We protect quarterbacks, and we got to open up holes for the backs.”
When asked if there was a reason why they took out Jacobs and not Lowe, Mayo replied with a flat, “no.”
That decision wasn’t that difficult. Lowe is the best they have and the move to replace Jacobs with Sow was to try and keep the Dolphins off of Drake Maye. Benching Lowe would have been the right move due to the penalties, but at the same time, cutting off your nose to spite your face also doesn’t exactly make much sense. It’s bad enough Maye had to deal with bad field position due to Lowe, Jacobs, and even Mike Onwenu (also flagged for offensive holding) making life difficult.
Overall, the offensive line accounted for seven of the team’s 10 penalties on Sunday, which Maye quietly admitted was a problem.
“Penalties just hurt us,” said Maye after the game. “I think it hurt us all the whole first half. Just hurting ourselves. I feel like we had a chance to move the ball on these guys, and they were pretty good up front, and they were a good defense that we faced. Just nothing that they did. I think just penalties set us back and put us behind the eight ball. We just can’t do that in this league.”
4) Secondary issues: One area that was obviously an issue on Sunday was the fact the Patriots seemingly had a tough time keeping up with Miami’s speed on offense, with Jaylen Waddle ending up with a productive afternoon after catching 8 passes for 144 yards.
Jonathan Jones normally goes against Tyreek Hill but he’s clearly lost a step this season and has struggled as much as we’ve ever seen him. Marcus Jones has had a tough time against bigger receivers, although he’s actually done a decent job – all things considered – for someone who missed all of last year with an injury.
Still, the club is in dire need of help down the depth chart at this position, and they seemingly have other issues. Safety Kyle Dugger, who has been battling an ankle injury for much of the season, struggled mightily again on Sunday before he finally came out of the game late in the contest.
They need help on the other side to anchor a group that has Christian Gonzalez and not much else. Gonzalez, who was also dealing with a hip injury, managed to start on Sunday and came up with a fumble recovery late in this one that he scooped up and showed unbelievable balance as he took it back 63 yards the other way for a touchdown.
It’s a group that is talented, but not talented enough to overcome mistakes and bad coaching. And it’s hopefully a group that will get some help next offseason.
5) Maye hates losing – but he needs to reel it in: In a game with little to cheer about Sunday, Maye was the lone bright spot in an otherwise dismal showing by the offense.
The rookie had to deal with constantly trying to overcome long yardage and a Miami pass rush that as the game wore on, essentially teed off on him on every snap and made his life completely miserable.
The knock on Maye is the fact that he’s such a determined player that he’s never willing to give up and concede a play, and it cost him again on Sunday.
As the rookie dropped back to throw and scrambled outside the pocket in the third quarter, he was wrapped up by Dolphins’ defensive tackle Zach Sieler, who as Maye tried to fight him off, he lost the football and the Dolphins recovered it at the New England 25 yard line.
Two plays later, the Dolphins were back in the end zone and the score was 31-0.
That’s a play where Maye needs to wrap up the ball and concede the sack and live to fight another down.
He also threw a fourth-quarter interception as he had a player in his face, with Maye trying to jump up and get the ball over the defender to running back Antonio Gibson.
Instead, the ball was tipped and ultimately picked off. That’s another play where Maye either needs to pump fake to try and create a window, or throw it away. As tall and athletically gifted as he might be, he’s going against other similarly gifted players and it’s a risk he can’t keep taking.
Even on the fumble, Maye still felt like he could have gotten out of it, which again, it’s hard not to appreciate that competitiveness, but he needs to resist that urge.
“The fumble, just find a way to protect the football and go down or find a way to get it out,” said Maye. “I think maybe I could have spun out of it, and maybe kind of reversed out of it, and maybe could have escaped it. But other than that, just can’t try to… I don’t want to swim-move the guy with a football. It’s just bad. Protect the football. We preached it all week, and I didn’t do that out there. The interception, just trying to check it down and happen to get tipped. So I’m not too worried about that.”
But mistakes aside, you can’t help but appreciate what he brings. There were multiple times throughout this game where he faced pressure and then calmly moved outside the pocket and either made a play with his arm, or with his legs. He finished Sunday’s contest with an unbelievable touchdown throw to tight end Austin Hooper, which was just an outstanding play.
On the play Maye was scrambling to his right, which brought up Miami’s defense, who clearly didn’t believe he had the arm to get the ball downfield at that point.
However, Hooper slipped behind the defense and was all alone down near the goal line, and Maye made an outstanding throw on the run and got the ball to the tight end, with Hooper catching the ball and then diving into the end zone for the touchdown.
The rookie essentially willed that play into existence, just showing you how incredible of an athlete he is and reminding everyone that the Patriots clearly found the right guy this past April.
More importantly, Maye is enduring his first losing stretch after so much success in college and it’s driving him to try and overcome the adversity his team is dealing with right now. In fact, it’s a message he conveyed to the guys in the locker room, with the rookie letting everyone know that they’re better than this.
“It’s tough. Any time you’re losing, I think, like I’ve always said, I hate losing more than I really like to win,” said Maye. “Losing sucks. I think, what I told some of the guys inside, just remember this feeling. Remember this feeling of really getting our butts whooped today. I think it’s only up from here. We got a bright future and bright players in there that are going to make some players for the Patriots.”
With five games remaining, Maye’s trajectory continues pointing upward and that’s one of the few reasons to at least believe better days might be coming. The only question will be whether or not the team can do what needs to – whether it be from a personnel or coaching standpoint – in order to hopefully bring everyone else along with him.
The Patriots will now return home for a game against the Colts next Sunday at Gillette Stadium in what will be their final game before they head into their bye week.
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