Why Devin McCourty 'hates' the Bill Belichick-Jerod Mayo drama – NBC Sports Boston

Are you Team Belichick or Team Mayo?

Whether good or bad, that became part of the discourse after the New England Patriots' 32:16 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in London. That humiliating defeat prompted head coach Jerod Mayo to declare the Patriots a “consistently soft football team,” prompting his predecessor Bill Belichick to defend his former players with a bit of revisionist history.

Ex-Patriots safety Devin McCourty has been watching this drama from afar and wants it to stop.

“I hate to see how when Mayo speaks, it kind of… turns into, 'Well, he's kind of trying to go after Bill.' “Bill is talking, he’s trying to target Mayo,” McCourty told Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.

“Those two – we always called Jerod 'Jerod Belichick.' We always said he was like Bill's long-lost son because he was like that and was similar to Bill as a player, so I hate to see how this all turned out, that they aren't close in some way and Jerod can call it Don't consider Bill as a former colleague, as a coach and then as your former head coach.

“I hate that part of it, so let's hope they sort this out and we stop seeing these subtle shots in the media.”

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Mayo admitted he hadn't spoken to Belichick this offseason since he replaced the legendary head coach in January. So there's clearly some distance between the two, which may have made it easier for Belichick to criticize his former linebacker and assistant coach.

But while McCourty initially chided Mayo for holding his players accountable instead of taking responsibility for his team's problems, McCourty believed Belichick was making a mistake a little He was disingenuous when he said he felt “sorry” for the Patriots' players (and also neglected to mention several key failures on the team's defense).

“I've never heard Bill say he felt sorry for any player or that he felt hurt, so I thought that was kind of weird,” McCourty said. “But it's interesting because they don't have Ja'Whaun Bentley either, they have him. “I don't have Christian Barmore, and I think one of the things that always stands out to me is that Coach Belichick always tells us, ” Don’t tell me what you did last year.” Every team is different. “Every season is different.”

Mayo is having quite a crash course in coaching this season; His team has lost six times in a row, his players publicly question each other's commitment and he allows himself to be put under pressure by his former boss. A win would go a long way toward turning things right for Mayo, but even against the 2-5 New York Jets, the Patriots enter Week 8 as seven-point underdogs.