The Patriots have bigger problems now than losing – Boston Herald

LONDON — Losing is the symptom.

Chills.

Little-known Parker Washington sprinting down the spine of your special teams for a 96-yard touchdown.

Aches.

Defending 17 straight runs without a lead or a hope.

Fever.

An angry locker room, where the head coach calls his players “soft” not realizing that insult is actually a boomerang that whips blame back at him, the man either coaching that softness or allowing it to fester.

Before the Patriots lost to the fellow 1-5 Jaguars on Sunday, they were an ailing football team.

Now at 1-6, they’re still sick because the sweeping treatment Mayo chose — changing quarterbacks — isn’t what ailed them in the first place.

It was depth, coaching and culture; the roots of any team and now the source of their six-game losing skid.

Since upsetting Cincinnati in their season opener, the Patriots have developed more rot than roots. They’re taking more penalties, committing more mental mistakes and getting trampled on defense for a 147 rushing yards per game.

They’re regressing.

You know this because Drake Maye just submitted the two best quarterback performances of the season, and the Pats lost both games by an average of 18 points. Around Maye, the run-first Patriots have gained a measly 66 yards on hand-offs. In fact, since Maye made his starting debut, he’s run for a team-high 56 yards on scrambles; meaning the Patriots have actually rushed for more yards when trying to pass than when trying to run.

Passing would be less of an issue if the coaching staff would simply treat their best receiver like he’s their best receiver. Instead, DeMario Douglas, who led the team in catches and receiving yards entering kickoff, sees the third-most snaps among the wideouts. Unlucky for the coaching staff, Douglas missed most of the second half Sunday with an illness, which forced them to dust off veteran K.J. Osborn.

After not seeing a pass for three weeks, Osborn caught Maye’s final touchdown pass and made a curious celebration raising his right hand to his helmet with his thumb and pinky finger extended.

Did he mean … call me?

Whether that was directed at outside front offices or his own coaches, the call-me theory gained traction when Osborn later shared an Instagram post from his agent, who revealed a text exchange he had with Osborn after the game. The agent’s text detailed, among other things, the Patriots’ supposed plans to make Osborn inactive before changing their minds at 11 p.m. Saturday. The agent then signed off with: “I’m with you while we figure out this situation and every other…”

Count Kendrick Bourne as another Patriot trying to figure what the hell is happening.

Bourne told me after the game the team lacked energy, but couldn’t explain why. He blamed teammates for failing to adjust to the time change, and suggested some were not fully committed to winning.

“There’s certain things we need to figure out that’s within. That’s how the energy feels,” Bourne told me. “There’s something else that is contributing to us having low energy. Like, we had good, long drives, and that’s when we need to play our hardest. But with those drives, we start to get tired.

“There’s self-evaluating we need to do. I don’t know who specifically, it’s just as a group, it feels like that.”

Patriots veterans call out teammates after 32-16 loss at London

The coaches weren’t exempt from Bourne’s review, either.

“I think they’re just figuring it out,” he said of the staff. “You know, they go on day by day, week by week, too. So we’ve got to be better in every area. Players, coaches, everybody’s got to be better.”

On defense, veteran players have gone to great lengths to light a fire under one another. Davon Godchaux called his teammates “selfish” on the radio three weeks ago. On Sunday, fellow defensive tackle Daniel Ekuale saw Godchaux’s lit match and raised him a flamethrower.

“I feel like a lot of guys think too highly of themselves, and have to check their egos and come in and just play as a team,” Ekuale told me.

Ekuale is somewhat of a tragic, emblematic figure in all of this.

A lifetime pass-rushing specialist, Ekuale is tracking to surpass his single-season career high in defensive snaps less than halfway through the season because the Patriots have no one else to defend the run. His position coach, Jerry Montgomery, gave this ringing endorsement of Ekuale’s early-down work after it became clear he would have to replace Christian Barmore in the preseason.