Henry has blunt response when asked about mood in Patriots locker room originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The New England Patriots are down bad right now.
One week after Bill Belichick suffered the worst loss of his head coaching career, he suffered the second-worst in a 34-0 shutout loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday afternoon at Gillette Stadium. The Week 5 defeat was pretty much the Patriots hitting rock bottom in all three phases. Their offense scored zero points, the defense got shredded, and special teams included a missed field goal and a couple bad punts.
What was the mood like in the locker room following the second-worst shutout loss in team history?
“Not great,” tight end Hunter Henry told reporters in his postgame press conference. “I’ll just leave it at that.”
Turnovers have killed the Patriots through five games. Starting quarterback Mac Jones has eight turnovers so far, and four of them have been returned for touchdowns by the opposing defense. Jones was intercepted twice (including a pick-6) and fumbled once against the Saints.
“It’s not good enough,” Henry said. “I can talk about our side of the ball. Three turnovers again, one of them is a score. Two of them were basically scores, put them in the red zone. Can’t play like that. Just not good enough at all.”
Where does the team go from here?
“We just have to go back to work,” Henry said. “That’s really what it’s all about. It’s just not good enough at any level. It’s not how we want to play football. It’s not how we want to do things. We just have to be better. I don’t know if I have all the answers right now, to be honest, but we have to find answers very, very fast.”
Effort level has been an issue over the last two games, during which the Patriots have been outscored 72-3. Sunday’s effort against the Saints was pathetic, frankly.
Patriots wide receiver Kendrick Bourne identified this area among the many things that the team must address.
“We’ve got to work harder,” Bourne told reporters….
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