Jerod Mayo should take some grief for this decision vs. Seahawks

COMMENTARY

It wasn’t the egregious, overtime pass interference call on New England cornerback Jonathan Jones that ultimately led the Patriots to fall in their home opener at Gillette Stadium on Sunday. Nor was it rookie head coach Jerod Mayo’s flustered decision to punt, following a curious selection of offensive plays, in overtime. 

It wasn’t Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith and DK Metcalf hooking up on a 56-yard touchdown pass thanks to blown coverage on New England’s part in the first half. Nor should you blame Seahawks safety Julian Love for blocking New England’s Joey Slye’s 48-yard field goal attempt in the fourth quarter. 

There was plenty that went wrong for the Patriots in their follow-up to the victorious shocker they pulled off in Cincinnati a week ago. New England’s presumed weaknesses all showed up in Game 2: poor offensive line play, forcing quarterback Jacoby Brissett to run for his life and take a beating that is probably going to make the Drake Maye truthers get their wish sooner than later. Thus, the passing game was nonexistent. Brissett wound up only finding two wide receivers — JaLynn Polk, who scored the first touchdown of the game, and K.J. Osborn, who only added to his stat sheet late in the game — on the afternoon.  

But despite all the little mistakes the 1-1 Patriots made against the Seahawks, no incident was more glaring than the rookie coaching display that head coach Jerod Mayo and offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt brought to Foxborough that afternoon. And there’s no other sequence that should have you wondering if the ghost of Matt Patricia is still in charge than the Patriots’ final possession of the first half. 

If anything, it was a good teaching tool. With only 1:32 remaining in the half, and the Patriots backed up inside their own 10-yard line, my teenaged son started bellyaching that Mayo was going to pull some “Belichick crap” and just run out the clock instead of taking a chance. On your own 8-yard line, why wouldn’t you? Or, at the very least, run the ball a couple times and see if you get something. If you get it out to the 30 or 40, maybe we’ll start thinking about something. Just don’t be stupid. Go into halftime with a one-point lead. 

Instead, here was the idiotic turn of events: 

First down: JaMycal Hasty ran for two yards. 

Second down: No huddle. Brissett and tight end Hunter Henry couldn’t connect on a short pass. 

Third down: Another incomplete pass to Henry. 

Fourth down: Punt. 

What an amazing cluster. 

Thanks to having all three timeouts (plus the extra two clock stoppages the Patriots gifted them), Seattle marched from its own 49-yard line to the New England 25, ending in a Jason Myers field goal that allowed Seattle to take a 17-13 lead. Even if the script remained the same in the second half, when Brissett spent more time wincing than scoring, maybe the Patriots escape with a win if they had just run out the clock in the first. The game might not go to overtime, and the entire NFL would all of a sudden be talking about those 2-0 Patriots.

It all took only 35 seconds for the Seahawks. Or, the time the Patriots could have run down by not trying to turn their challenged offense into something gunslinger, run by Brett Favre. From your own 10-yard line. With 47 seconds remaining.

Thus far, Van Pelt’s offensive philosophy hasn’t exactly gotten anybody excited. But the Patriots are consistently telling us how they are committed to the run, bragging about their ability to play 1976-style, pound-and-ground football in 2024. The Brissett-Henry connection was working well in the first half. But it didn’t mean that the duo suddenly turned into Brady-Gronkowski. Did Mayo and Van Pelt really think they were going to be able to drive the field for a score? With this offense? Take the lead, head into the locker room, and see if you can keep riding this early-season vibe.

Instead, Patriots coaches literally gave the Seahawks three points.

“I don’t want to get into, ‘If this would have happened,’ or looking back like that and dealing with hypotheticals,” Mayo said at his press conference Monday morning. “All of those key decisions…those are all things that can change on a game-by-game basis and also the flow of the game.”

If you want to argue that if Brissett and Henry hook up on second down, maybe it gave the Patriots something where they could work the ball to midfield. Instead, you didn’t make the play and stopped the clock. But to try it again on third down and stop the clock AGAIN for the Seahawks was in the Adam Gase territory of the playbook.

Seattle essentially had FIVE timeouts at the end of the first half.

What Mayo might lack in on-field decision-making though says little about the influence he has seemingly inflicted on the young Patriots. The players have bought in, and that’s the most important aspect to the job a head coach can bring. The rest will follow with the right set of people surrounding you.

TBD on that one.

But this is who the Patriots are, a team not good enough to truly compete, but a unit that can give teams a game every week. For those of us who expected much worse (or simply can’t rebound from the hangover of the depressing 2023 season), it’s much better than expected already.

This won’t be the only loss this season where the Patriots have poor coaching to blame. That’s to be expected with a first-year head coach.

But when glaring moments like Sunday’s end-of-half performance show up, it only highlights the learning curve in Foxborough.