New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo admitted that he was disappointed with what he called a ‘soft’ performance from his team after they fell to defeat against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley.

Mayo was quick to bemoan failings on both sides of the run game, but refused to dwell on the shortcomings after the Patriots watched a 10-0 first quarter lead dissolve into a 32-16 loss to a Jaguars team that arrived in London with just one win in six this season.

“We came out, started fast, but what I would say is, look, we’re a soft football team across the board,” the first-year head coach lamented. “You talk about what makes a tough football team. That is being able to run the ball, that is being able to stop the run, being able to cover kicks. We did none of those today. They controlled the ball for most of the day. Their run game averaged over four-and-a-half yards a carry. Our run game, not sure what the average was, but it wasn’t good.

“But, back to the drawing board. I mean, we can’t sit here and pout. We just got to put a game together.”

Mayo was not afraid of the impact of his words and how his team would interpret them, telling the assembled media that he uses his press conferences ‘as a way to reinforce a message or get a message out’ to his players.

“He said it well,” linebacker Jahlani Tavai admitted. “We got to look in the mirror and we got to understand what he’s saying. If we’re okay with being soft, then some people will fall off and the rest of us will want to prove that wrong — we’ll step up and make

sure that doesn’t happen.

“We’re not doing good. That’s all that needs to be said about it. We got to improve, just got to do our jobs. That’s it. Got to do our jobs and make the tackle. It’s 11 guys on the field, but it only takes one person in the defense to mess up a whole play. We have to be consistent. You can’t do your job one play, take another off. All 11 guys on the field who are out there at the time, we just got to do our jobs.”

Tavai admitted that watching Parker Washington return a punt for a London Games record 96 yards for a touchdown hurt as much as anything on defense.

“Again, do our jobs,” he stressed. “We’re out there to make sure that we put the defense in a good position. If you look at it, it’s all defensive players [on that special teams unit], so we got to take that personal. God forbid, we can’t let that happen again. We had guys there. The message right now is to do our job. We’re not doing it and it’s showing on the scoreboard.”