In his first year as head coach of the New England Patriots, Jerod Mayo is taking a hardline approach on fights during joint practices.
If you’re a starter who gets into a skirmish, you can plan on a long preseason game ahead, and if you’re a backup competing for a job, you’re going to lose an opportunity.
Asked Tuesday if he had a plan in place for fights, Mayo outlined his very direct approach.
“Absolutely. I mean, look, you don't fight in a real game,” Mayo said, via team transcript. “If you fight in a real game, you get fined; you get kicked out. It's the same thing here. Look, my message to the players, if you get in a fight out here, if you're a starter, you're going to play the whole preseason game. If you're not a starter, you won't play at all. That's kind of my mindset with that.”
The Patriots were set for a one-day joint practice with the Philadelphia Eagles on Tuesday.
Last year, the Patriots, with Mayo as their linebackers coach, had a rather physical set of practices with the Green Bay Packers. Averting such shenanigans seems to have played a part in this year’s scheduling of one-day practices rather than multiple with another squad.
“I think for me, you go out there, you practice one day and then you play in the game,” Mayo said. “Some people will say, ‘Well, why not two days?’ What I've seen over the years is that second day always gets a lot chippier. You go back and you watch the film, you're like, ‘I didn’t even see that!’ Then the next day, something breaks out. We didn't want that to happen. We're out here as football players, not fighters. That's the message to the team.”
Mayo has made his message clear: No fights for his players. They seemed to have gotten the message, too, as there were no reported fights from Tuesday's practice.
The Patriots play the Eagles in their second preseason game on Thursday.