As predicted by many, Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo walked back a comment he made after Sunday’s 30-17 loss to the Cardinals that seemed critical of offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt’s play-calling.
“I know there’s a lot of chatter about the question last night, you know, ‘you said that.’ I didn’t mean anything by that,” Mayo said Monday morning. “It was more of a defensive response, and ultimately, and I tried to clarify that with the follow-up question, because ultimately, all of those decisions are mine. So just wanted to get that out there.”
Mayo was asked Sunday if the team considered running Drake Maye in a short-yardage situation midway through the second quarter when the Patriots failed to convert on third-and-1 and fourth-and-1.
Mayo responded, “You said it. I didn’t.”
That seemed to indicate that Mayo would have run Maye in that situation, but that he couldn’t say it after the game.
People within the Patriots’ organization took Mayo’s comments as being critical of Van Pelt’s decision-making.
He later said in a follow-up Sunday, “It’s always my decision. The quarterback obviously has a good pair of legs and does a good job running the ball. We just chose not to do it there.”
Mayo was asked what he meant by a “defensive response.”
“Yeah, it was just more — I didn’t mean anything by it. I just was like, you know, ‘you said it’ because I didn’t want to go down that whole rabbit hole of trying to explain all those things,” Mayo said. “And like I just said, I tried to clarify that with the follow-up question, saying that all of those critical situations are on me.”
Mayo said that he can override Van Pelt’s play-calling decisions. He also said there’s no organizational disagreement about whether to use Maye on designed runs.
“We have quarterback design runs, just haven’t pulled them out yet,” Mayo said. “So there’s no disagreement. We’re all on the same page. I think Alex and the offensive staff do a good job putting together the game plan. I go in there, offer my two cents, and we come out of the out of the room as a unit, all on the same page.”
Mayo said on WEEI that he spoke to Van Pelt on Monday morning. Van Pelt’s response, according to Mayo, was “what are you talking about?”