Bill Belichick defends Patriots after Jerod Mayo’s criticism: ‘They’re not soft’

“We’re a soft football team across the board,” Mayo said. “We talk about what makes a tough football team, and that’s being able to run the ball, being able to stop the run and that’s being able to cover kicks. We did none of those.”

“The Patriots led the league last year in rushing defense, yards per carry, No. 1 in league. This year, they’re way down in the 20s somewhere. It’s the same guys.

“They re-signed [Anfernee] Jennings, they re-signed [Jahlani] Tavai. They re-signed obviously [Kyle] Dugger, right? Marcus Jones and [Christian] Gonzalez have been healthy all year which they were both on IR at this point last year. You’ve got [Deatrich] Wise, you’ve got [Devon] Godchaux. You’ve got Keion White, you got [Marte] Mapu, three rookies from last year. It’s a lot of the same players, and in some cases, I would say more.”

“I’m kind of hurt for those guys because to call them soft, they’re not soft. They were the best team in the league last year against the run. Those guys went out there and did it it even though we couldn’t score many points offensively. I feel bad for the defensive players on that one because those guys, that’s a tough group. … Those guys are all tough players. They’ll strap it up and go.”

“Let me just go ahead and correct that. We’re playing soft, OK?” Mayo said. “Because if you look at the first — going back to training camp, there was definitely some toughness all around the place and we still had the same players and we just got to play that way.”