Fauria: ‘Somebody’s been working’ with Jerod Mayo on press conferences
"He wasn’t giving anybody anything to write.”
Jerod Mayo hasn’t exactly made life easy on himself during his first season as Patriots head coach.
Not only have the 3-12 Patriots struggled on the field, but those expected growing pains for both a flawed roster and a rookie head coach have been magnified by his ill-advised musings to the media after losses.
Be it Mayo labeling his team as “soft” after a loss to the Jaguars in London or seemingly throwing offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt under the bus after a loss to the Cardinals earlier this month, Mayo’s comments have served as unnecessary distractions in what has already been an arduous football season.
But Mayo opted for a more milquetoast tone on Sunday after New England’s 24-21 loss to the Bills at Highmark Stadium.
Taking a page out of Bill Belichick’s postgame playbook, Mayo kept several of his answers both brief and vague — especially when it came to personnel decisions or playcalls.
On fourth-down decisions? “I’m not going to get too much into the thought process on that,” Mayo said. “I tried to do what’s best for the team.”
On crafting designed runs for Drake Maye? “We’re always looking for ways to win,” he added.
Mayo’s responses drew the attention of the crew for WBZ’s “Fifth Quarter” postgame show, with Steve Burton taking note of the coach’s “short, concise” answers.
It prompted former Patriots tight end Christian Fauria to speculate that Mayo has received some media training since that loss to Arizona.
“Oh, somebody’s been working with him,” Fauria said, as transcribed by MassLive’s Nick O’Malley. “Because everyone reads too much into what you say. You’re constantly trying to re-explain yourself. So he wasn’t giving anybody anything to write.”
ESPN’s Mike Reiss acknowledged that Mayo avoided any talk of silver linings, even if New England exceeded expectations with a three-point loss to Buffalo.
“The biggest message to me was that he’s saying ‘Don’t feel good about a loss. Don’t ever feel good about a loss,‘” Reiss said, adding: “Even though I think the three of us here might feel pretty good about the loss based on what we expected going into the game.”
Speaking ahead of New England’s bye week in an interview with NBC Sports Boston’s Tom E. Curran, Mayo acknowledged that he is no stranger to dealing with criticism doled out through the media.
“I understand media and I understand the frustration of the fans,” Mayo said. “Even at the beginning of the season when we didn’t start Drake (Maye). Everyone was up in arms. … And it would have been very easy if I heard all of the noise to really go against the plan that we talked about in a time of peace. And when I say in a time of peace, that’s when you don’t have all these people in your ear telling you what to do.”
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