"If you take away that last drive, I think it was like 17-18, plays, we're all feeling a little bit better about the game. Definitely things to build on. I would say those guys played into the last seconds, as you guys saw, and we still had an opportunity at the end of the game."
That was Jerod Mayo this morning, about 17 hours after his team lost 25-24 to the Indianapolis Colts at Gillette Stadium. You hit me with that logic postgame, and it can be swept aside (to a degree). The game just ended. Mayo has just addressed the team and then has to step in front of a room full of cameras and reporters who want to know why he did this or why he didn't. It's not an easy spot, and even the coaches who have had the longest tenures and are good at media don't always hit it out of the park. But Mayo has taken this stance repeatedly this season, especially regarding the defense, and quite frankly, it's a loser's lament.
The first-year head coach wanted us to "take out" the pair of long runs by the Texans in that 20-point defeat. He wanted us to "take out" the loss to the Dolphins and "look at the last four; we've done a lot of good things." Mayo wanted to dismiss Cooper Kupp's overall impact in the 28-22 defeat to the Rams, "Look, Kupp had the one reception, which was a huge chunk of those yards." Those are recent examples. I could dig for more, but I believe the point has been made. I mean, what are we doing here? Is that supposed to make your players feel better about what happened? The fan base? Ownership? Yourself?
"When I talk to the team, I tell them all the time, I don't have a crystal ball on what play is going to be important, but you're exactly right.," said Mayo when asked what kind of message he's trying to send by saying things like this. "That's what the NFL is. The NFL comes down to a few plays, and that's really my message when I say it. It comes down to a few plays.
"You look at it from one way, if we would have done this, and then you look at it the other way, we didn't get it done. That's kind of why we're here now. We've had seven one-score games, and I think we're 2-5 in those games. We've just got to be better. Again, that's what the NFL is."
He's right about that. A dozen games this weekend were decided by seven or fewer points. That tied a league record set in week two of this year. There's been no fewer than five one-score games in a week this season; on average, it's nine per week. So welcome to the club, Jerod. This is what you signed up for. Every. Damn. Week. Your roster isn't good enough, but neither is the coaching. If you want to win games in the margins, especially with the talent being what it is, this staff has to do a better job. Excuse-making doesn't make it better, and there's been plenty of that this year, usually prefaced or postscripted with "no excuses."
For instance, you'll probably read a lot about bad calls by the officials yesterday (just not here) - no doubt ignoring the possible butterfly effect of flags that weren't thrown against the Pats or ones thrown against Indy (the OPI on Michael Pittman in the final quarter was complete nonsense). An obvious one was on the two-point conversion that won the game for Indy. Christian Barmore is held.
"Look, they didn't call it," said Mayo this morning. "I thought he got held. I watched the film. I mean, it's pretty clear to me, but it wasn't called. So, there's no excuses from me on that."
Right, and it's not why your team lost, Jerod. Yes, that one play gave them the margin of victory, but how about the "17-18" plays you want to "take out?" (It was a 19-play drive, for the record). For instance, the Colts were leaning heavily on Anthony Richardson's legs in short-yardage situations. Yet, he converted two of the three fourth downs on the game-winning and could have easily scored on the first down play (28 seconds remaining) but didn't read the block on Christian Gonzalez correctly and got shoved out of bounds at the two instead of hitting paydirt. He eventually got the Colts there anyway, hitting wide receiver Alec Pierce on a crossing route defended by, wait for it, safety Kyle Dugger. Yes, the same Kyle Dugger, who struggles to cover tight ends, somehow was allowed to be isolated on Indy's second-best wide receiver? So, until Mayo, his hand-picked defensive coordinator DeMarcus Covington, and the rest of this staff do a better job, expecting better results is the very definition of insanity. After witnessing what we have the last three seasons, I'm all stocked up on crazy.