Bill Belichick blasted Jerod Mayo's "soft" accusations, but at least one current Patriots player didn't believe the new coach was off base.
Cornerback Jonathan Jones was asked during an interview on WEEI for his thoughts on Mayo's comments.
"That's his opinion," Jones said. "I always take the opinions of what our coaches say to heart. The opposite of a soft team is a tough team, and we pride ourselves around here on being able to stop the run, run the ball and cover kicks. If you look at our last game, we didn't do any of those."
Jones avoided the taboo "soft" characterization but agreed with Mayo's assessment that the Patriots haven't played like a tough team in recent weeks, including getting run over in Week 7 against Jacksonville.
"I don't think we have any space to call ourselves a tough team based off our last performance," Jones said. "We weren't able to stop the run, we weren't able to run the ball, and we weren't able to cover kicks."
The Patriots have been missing key pieces, including Christian Barmore and Ja'Whaun Bentley, this season, but the disintegration of their run defense has been stunning. Perhaps Mayo didn't need to publicly call his club "soft" in the aftermath of last week's win. But even players in the locker room can admit the coach's characterization wasn't entirely off base.
