Bill Belichick defends Patriots after Jerod Mayo criticism: 'They're not gentle'

“We’re a soft football team across the board,” Mayo said. “We talk about what makes a strong football team and that is the ability to run the ball, stop the run and cover kicks. We didn’t do any of that.”

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

“They re-signed (Anfernee) Jennings, they re-signed (Jahlani) Tavai. They obviously re-signed (Kyle) Dugger, right? Marcus Jones and (Christian) Gonzalez have been healthy all year, and they've both been on IR at this point, you've got (Deatrich) Wise, you've got (Devon) Godchaux, you've got (Marte) Mapu, it's a lot of the same players, and in some cases I would say more.”

“These guys kind of hurt me because to call them soft, they’re not soft. They were the best team in the league against the run last year. These guys went out there and did it even though we could. “I didn't score a lot of points on offense because these guys are a tough group… They're going to put in the effort and go.”

“Let me just go ahead and correct that. “We play soft, okay?” Mayo said. “Because when you first look at it – when we went back to training camp, it was definitely tough everywhere, and we still had the same players and we could just play like that.”