“Honestly, when that report came out, my brother sent it to me and it was more hurtful than anything,” Mayo said Tuesday. “I thought it was, well, the timing is a bit strange in my opinion.
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“And I feel like if that was the case, it would have been leaked sooner. At the same time, I want to say that I tried to treat everyone equally and thought about it for a while.
“When people talk about annoying people in the wrong way, sometimes that's part of a leader's job, annoying people in the wrong way. I always try to treat my feedback constructively and respectfully. Some people appreciate this transparency, others don't. But at the end of the day, if we can't piss people off in the wrong way, how are you going to be the best you can be?
“I would say that any change or anything like that will be painful. Someone will bully you the wrong way. You have to go through all the words and really get to the core, the core of what someone is trying to say.”
Mayo said the report sparked a “period of self-reflection.” “Maybe one of his blind spots is victimizing people in the wrong way,” Mayo said, but the report infuriated him. He hopes that the people who felt this way would have spoken to him about it.
“I went through the whole emotional cycle of being angry first of all,” he said. “I get angry to the point where I feel like I always treat people the same. I haven't really changed in that respect and I've evolved as a coach, I've evolved as a man in my mid-30s. In the future I would hope that these people would give me the opportunity to explain myself and also give the opportunity to get on the same track.
“At the end of the day, some people will like you and others won't, and I'm okay with that.
“I think when it's all said and done, the players understand that as a coaching staff we're trying to put them in the best possible position to perform. And then from a coaching perspective, I just want to have people around me that tell me the truth.”
Constant fighting
Now that the final week of the season has arrived, offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien was asked to think about what went wrong in the crime.
New England enters Sunday's game with the Jets averaging a league-worst 14.6 points per game. Bailey Zappe threw three interceptions against the Bills last Sunday. MacJoneswho lost the starting quarterback job at the start of the season, threw no more than two interceptions in a game this season.
Zappe's play has been inconsistent in five starts. He has five touchdown passes against one interception in two wins. He has thrown four interceptions for one touchdown in three losses.
O'Brien said consistency has been an issue across the board.
“We need to get more consistency, and a big part of that is coaching,” O’Brien said. “I think the turnovers were a problem. We were inconsistent.
“We turn the ball over far too often, you could see that clearly in this game last weekend. We were inconsistent in our defense and our run blocked up front. We were inconsistent in the passing game.
“I take responsibility for that too. That comes down to doing a better job as a coach. Hopefully we’ll do a better job coaching this week and get these guys ready to go.”
Praise for Slater
Special teams coach Cam Achord said he couldn't get his fair share of praise for it Matthew Slater into a press availability.
Slater, 38, has played more games for the Patriots than anyone else Tom Brady. Given the possibility that Sunday could be Slater's final game, Achord was asked what Slater's career has meant to him.
“If you could create a football player to be a coach, Matt Slater would be the guy I would create,” Achord said. “He will be the leader of the locker room. He will follow that line and put the guys under pressure. He will bring the younger ones with him.
“He’s going to push the older guys to be great on the field. He's going to push guys to be great people and great fathers off the field. Even when it comes to coaches, several coaches have come to him and he is the guy who listens first. He will see, “What is your perspective?”
“It will never be combative with him. And then the competitiveness that he shows out there is unrivaled. I know you interact with him a lot off the field, and it's usually just with a smile. On game day, it's just a fire that he has. That switch clicks for him.”
Khari Thompson can be reached at [email protected].