The Patriots now have bigger problems than defeat – Boston Herald

LONDON – Losing is a symptom.

Chills.

Little-known Parker Washington races down your special teams ridge for a 96-yard touchdown.

Pain.

Defending 17 runs in a row with no lead or hope.

High temperature.

An angry locker room where the head coach calls his players “soft” without realizing that the insult is actually a boomerang that dumps blame on him, with the man either training that softness or letting it fester.

Before the Patriots lost to their fellow Jaguars 1-5 on Sunday, they were a weak football team.

Now, at 1-6, they’re still hurting because the radical approach Mayo took – rotating quarterbacks – isn’t what bothered them in the first place.

It was depth, learning and culture; the roots of any team, and now the source of their six-game loss.

After defeating Cincinnati in the season opener, the Patriots had more rot than roots. They commit more penalties, make more mental errors and get overwhelmed by defense while gaining 147 yards per game.

They are regressing.

You know this because Drake May just had two of his best quarterback performances of the season and the Pats lost both games by an average of 18 points. In May County, the Patriots running back had a measly 66 passing yards. In fact, since Maye made his starting debut, he has rushed for a team-high 56 yards from scrimmage; this means the Patriots actually rushed for more yards trying to pass than when trying to escape.

The passing game would be less of an issue if the coaching staff simply treated their best receiver as if he were their best receiver. Instead, DeMario Douglas, who led the team in catches and kickoff receiving yards, ranks third in snaps among wideouts. Unfortunately for the coaching staff, Douglas missed most of the second half of Sunday with an illness that forced them to shake off veteran KJ Osborne.

Having not seen a pass for three weeks, Osborne caught May’s final pass and made a curious celebration by raising his right hand to his helmet with his thumb and little finger extended.

Did he mean… call me?

Whether it was directed at the outside offices or his own coaches, the “call me” theory gained traction when Osborne later shared an Instagram post from his agent who recounted a text message he had with Osborne after the game. The agent’s text, among other things, details the Patriots’ supposed plans to make Osborne inactive before they change their mind at 11 p.m. Saturday. The agent then finished by saying, “I’m with you as we figure out this situation and all the others…”

Consider Kendrick Bourne another Patriot trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

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

“There are certain things we need to figure out that are inside. This is what energy feels like,” Bourne told me. “There are other things that contribute to our low energy levels. Like, we’ve had good, long drives and that’s when we need to play as hard as we can. But we are starting to get tired of these drives.

“We need to do a self-assessment. I don’t know who exactly, it’s just that as a group it feels like that.”

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

Coaches were also not exempt from Bourne’s testing.

“I think they just get it,” he said of the staff. “You know, they continue day after day, week after week. So we have to be better in all areas. Players, coaches, everyone needs to be better.”

On defense, the veteran players did their best to light a fire under each other. Three weeks ago, Davon Godchaux called his teammates “selfish” on the radio. On Sunday, fellow defenseman Daniel Ekuale saw Godchaux’s lit match and raised a flamethrower at him.

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

Ekuale is sort of the tragic, symbolic figure in all of this.

A lifelong pass-rushing specialist, Ekuale is looking to surpass his single-season defensive record less than halfway through the season because the Patriots have no one else to guard. His head coach Gerry Montgomery strongly endorsed Ekuale’s work early on after it became clear that he would have to replace Christian Barmore in pre-season.