Devin McCourty laments ‘subtle shots’ between Belichick and Mayo originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Are you Team Belichick or Team Mayo?
For better or for worse, that has become part of the discourse following the New England Patriots’ 32-16 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in London. That humiliating defeat prompted head coach Jerod Mayo to declare the Patriots a “soft football team across the board,” prompting his predecessor, Bill Belichick, to defend his former players with a bit of revisionist history.
Ex-Patriots safety Devin McCourty has been watching this drama from afar and he wants it to stop.
“I hate to see how when Mayo speaks, it kind of… turns into, ‘Well, he’s trying to attack Bill a little bit.’ Bill is talking, he’s trying to take a shot at Mayo a little bit,” McCourty told Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
“These two – we always called Jerod ‘Jerod Belichick.’ We always said he looked like Bill’s long-lost son because of how he was and how similar he was to Bill as a player, so I hate to see this all has gone, that they are not even remotely close and Jerod can Don’t call Bill up as a former colleague, as a coach and then as your former head coach.
“I hate that part of this, so hopefully they come out of this and we don’t see subtle images like this back and forth in the media anymore.”
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Mayo admitted he hadn’t spoken to Belichick this offseason since replacing the legendary head coach in January, so there’s clearly some distance between the two, making it easier for Belichick to criticize his former linebacker and assistant coach .
But while McCourty initially chided Mayo for calling out his players instead of accepting responsibility for his team’s struggles, McCourty thought Belichick was a bit disingenuous when he said he felt “bad” for Patriots players (and also neglected to mention some key absences on the team’s defense).
“I’ve never heard Bill say he felt bad or hurt for any player, so I thought that was funny,” McCourty said. “But it’s interesting because they don’t have a Ja’Whaun Bentley either, they don’t have a Ja’Whaun Bentley.” I don’t have Christian Barmore, and I think one of the things that always stands out to me is coach Belichick always tells us, ‘Don’t tell me about what you did last year. Every team is different. Every season is different. ”
Mayo are getting quite a crash course in coaching this season; his team has lost six times in a row, his players publicly doubt each other’s efforts and he is criticized by his former boss. A win would go a long way toward helping Mayo, but even against the 2-5 New York Jets, the Patriots enter Week 8 as seven-point underdogs.
