FOXBORO — Patriots coach Jerod Mayo gathered players for a regular team meeting Monday morning.
Then, to help them move on from last week’s disastrous loss to the Jets, he did something unusual.
“I took (players) through some of the storylines around the league that started back in the spring; Super Bowl contenders, the Steelers, they went (0-3) in the preseason, and everyone was panicking. These guys are sitting there at 3-0,” Mayo said Monday on WEEI. “Listen, it’s the NFL, and any given Sunday, teams can go out there and perform and win a game. We just need more consistency across the board.”
Thursday’s 24-3 loss hit hard for the Patriots, who lost to a rival using their own ball-control offensive formula against them. The Patriots lost at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and trailed by two possessions early in the game, something they had yet to face all season. The defense also missed several tackles, and Mayo said after Monday’s meeting the team would spend practice trying to fix the areas that undermined them against the Jets.
“Today is a bonus day for us, and I (went) over some corrections from the last game and kind of put some things into perspective that it’s early in the season, and we’re still trying to figure this thing out as a coaching staff, as players, and we’ll get better,” he said. “We’ve just got to get better every single week, and Thursday night obviously wasn’t reflective of the things that we’ve talked about.”
Extra points
The Patriots have opened as 10.5-point underdogs for Sunday’s game at San Francisco. If the spread holds until kickoff, this will mark the fifth time the Pats have been greater than 10-point underdogs this century, including one game last season, another in 2020 and two during the 2001 season. … The Patriots are planning to leave for the West Coast on Friday evening to give themselves time to adjust to the change in time zones. They have not played at San Francisco since 2016. …. In the locker room Monday, players received a game ball from the Patriots’ Week 1 win at Cincinnati.
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