Jerod Mayo says "No Victory Mondays" for the 1-0 Patriots
FOXBORO -- The Patriots and rookie head coach Jerod Mayo celebrated their upset win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday. Now that Monday has arrived, that celebration is over.
There is no day off for Patriots after taming the Bengals, 16-10, in Cincinnati. As Mayo knows, there is a lot of work for this team to do if they want to keep winning football games. Players worked out in the morning, will put a bow on Sunday's win with a film session, and then shift their focus to Week 2 against the Seattle Seahawks in Foxboro.
A so-called "Victory Monday" in Foxboro? Not on Mayo's watch.
"Victory Monday? It's one game! No victory Monday," Mayo told reporters in a video conference on Monday morning. "The guys are in, hopefully they're excited to be in. They're working out and we'll go through the film and button this game up, and we'll start to introduce Seattle. That's the mentality: No victory Mondays."
It's not quite Bill Belichick chanting "No days off!" at a Super Bowl parade for thousands of fans who were skipping work, but it's not a bad calling card for Mayo and his Patriots.
While a 1-0 record to start the season is a pleasant surprise, Mayo isn't going to take it for granted. The Patriots are 3.5-point home underdogs heading into their Week 2 matchup against the Seahawks.
But Patriots players are certainly buying into Mayo's system and approach in New England. He had his team ready to play on Sunday, while the favored Bengals were a mess throughout the game in front of their home fans. Mayo said that the difficult and heavy training camp he and his staff put his players through had them prepared for Sunday's action, and players seemed to agree.
As the Patriots were in the final stages of outlasting the Bengals on Sunday, Mayo overheard his players shouting "take them to the hill" on the sideline. They were referencing the conditioning hills behind the team's practice field in Foxboro, and those post-practice sprints up the hills led to New England's conditioning being far better than Cincinnati's on Sunday.
"I would say, as a coach, from my perspective, you have to artificially put barriers in front of these guys. We always talk about taking the hard route," Mayo said Monday. "[Sunday], in the fourth quarter, I heard guys on the sidelines saying, 'take them to the hill.' At the end of the training camp, we would go over to the hill and those guys would run. That's what you have to do.
"I was so excited, even just hearing that from the players. It meant a lot," Mayo added. "That just means taking them into the deep water and all the extra things that we do, it pays off. It pays off in the long term. It's hard for people to see in the short term how that stuff really affects the outcome of games."
The road will just get tougher for New England, but Mayo is confident that his players are prepared for the bumps ahead. He said that he isn't listening to any of the outside noise about his team -- the negativity surrounding the squad ahead of Sunday, nor the positivity after Sunday's win.
"Our job is to go out here and win football games. Our job is to go out here and play for one another. Our job is to go out here and play at a high level each and every week," he said. "I don't even want to get this win overblown. It's one game. From a coaching perspective, our job is to teach these guys how to win. When you won a lot, having that sense of urgency to not fall into being comfortable [is huge]. We won one game."