Some people treat the word 'culture' as if it's some mystical term. Like only true believers can understand what it means and how to get and maintain it. I'm going to be typically me and phrase my response to that notion with one word (a compound word at that): bullcrap.
Culture is primarily established by your record. Wins or even competitive losses against good teams infuse the locker room with a belief that what surrounds them — players, coaches, support staff — is good enough to elevate the collective and lead to more success in the future, both immediate and, perhaps, long-term.
But in an attempt to get a quick fix heading into winter and spring of 2021 (because of a succession of poor drafts), Bill Belichick and his minions spent like drunken sailors. In the immediate aftermath, the state-run media (it has many wings) tried to tell you this was genius, that Bill was playing chess, and the rest of the league was playing checkers. The Pats, they said, were back, baby.
The reality is that unhinged fiscal splurge merely sprayed cologne over a rotting corpse of the team you once knew, a team that thrived under Belichick and Tom Brady for nearly two decades but now has become one of the worst franchises in football. They didn't properly vet some of their big-money acquisitions, bringing in mercenaries who are more concerned with how they play individually and less focused on the collective. Lead by example? Sure, if the example you want is highlighted by selfishness.
“Look in the mirror and see what you want this season to be for yourself,” Jonathan Jones told the Boston Herald after the game yesterday. “It doesn’t stop here. Hopefully, guys want to further their careers, and how you handle adversity, how you handle these next few weeks is going to say a lot about you as a player, a lot about you as a person, and who you want on your team when things aren’t going right.”
They didn't go right against the Dolphins and haven't for much of the year. These Patriots are an aimless, unfocused bunch that no longer turns over every stone to prepare, but rather is consistently surprised by moments that happen both during the week (Marcus Jones can play offense?) and in the game itself (how do we defend these bunch sets and motion?). They have rarely won a coaching matchup this fall, falling to the one-win Titans and two-win Jaguars (and that was an ass-kicking). Yes, I know there have been injuries. That's the league. They happen. How you deal with them helps define who you are and what you can become.
And don't get me started on how they (ownership, Eliot Wolf, and the rest of the front office) built this 2024-25 edition because the mistakes made are just as egregious. For instance:
- Signing a right tackle to play left (Chuks Okorafor) who eventually left the team
- An unwillingness to trade up to get a tackle in the draft and instead takes the last of that tier (Caedan Wallace) and then insists he, too, could play left after having always been on the right.
- Not surrendering enough capital to move up in the second round and get the right receiver, instead trading back to get one who's struggled to make an impact (Ja'Lynn Polk). But hey, they traded back and acquired an extra pick in the fourth round, which they used to take another pass catcher (Javon Baker), whose biggest claim to fame on the football field is getting benched from kick return duties.
- Re-upping a slew of players at the core of the 4-13 sinking ship the previous season. Do you think they have regrets about some of those business decisions? I do.
All that's to say, this veteran owner, who loves to be loved, has completely misjudged what their organization has become. Moving on from Belichick made sense. It was time. But handing the reins over to an unproven coach who had never even coordinated a defense never made sense, especially when you consider they had promised him the keys but then did nothing to help him learn how to drive the damn car. Instead, the Krafts have let Mayo be the face of this erosion, and the first-year coach's job should be in jeopardy, but does anyone really believe Robert Kraft will turn on his hand-picked successor after one season? I do not.
On Monday morning, I asked Mayo if re-establishing a winning culture had been more difficult than he expected.
"I never thought that we would be able to re-establish a culture in year one," he said. "It's a process. It's hard to change a culture, and we're trying to put those pieces together. I think it would be a disservice to get to the end of the year and not know exactly what we have from a player or coaching perspective, and that has to be our focus."
He's right. This was never going to be easy, but after taking some baby steps forward in the previous month, the Pats reverted to their mid-September through all of October form, raising more questions about whether or not any of what Mayo (and those above him) wants to establish has come to fruition. It certainly doesn't show in the win-loss column. Based on Bedard's post-game report about an "unbothered" locker room (this also happened late last year, and there was some consternation in various circles that I would dare write a piece because no one else had/did), it seems that the Pats are once again in the place of playing not for each other, but for their own bottom line.
"I don't question any of that stuff, you know, as far as the players taking a butt-kicking like that personally," said Mayo when asked about multiple columns that brought this issue up. "Like, everyone in that locker room - we were down. Now, I'm not sure what that report is, but I'm not going to talk about that. I know the guys were disappointed."
This leads me back to that word, culture. Wins create a level of buy-in, and coaches who consistently put their players in the right spots for success do as well. This is a flawed roster, but a collection of games (Seattle, Miami the first time, Tennessee, maybe even LA) were there for the taking. Instead, the Pats couldn't close, not just because of a lack of talent but because they lacked the attention to detail and the confidence that comes with a belief in themselves and each other. Until the wins stack, this culture will remain one defined by losing.