If the Patriots are a soft football team, then that is Jerod Mayo’s and his staff’s fault. The performance of the team is a direct reflection of their talent and their coaching staff.

Mayo told WEEI on Monday that the Patriots are playing “soft” but that they are not a soft team. Newsflash! If they are playing soft, they are a soft team. That is what a soft team is by definition.

You cannot be a “tough” team with tough guys and play soft. It doesn’t work that way. If the team is playing soft, that means that Mayo and his staff aren’t pushing them hard enough at practice. They are not demanding enough. Something needs to change or else the Patriots will finish with one of the worst records in franchise history.

It is time Mayo took accountability for the Patriots being soft. Bill Belichick was tough to deal with if you covered the team but he never called out players individually and he never called his team soft. He would talk about coaching and playing better collectively. If Mayo thinks he is going to inspire his team by saying they are playing soft, he is sadly mistaken. Comments like that wear on players over time.

When Mayo took over for Belichick, he stressed in his introductory press conference the importance of treating people the right way and not always being a hard ass. Well, it might be time to rethink that approach. You can still be treat people with respect and be demanding.

Mayo defended his approach yesterday and said that treating people like human beings does not make him a soft coach.

“That’s in my DNA. Once again, a lot of these things are about relationships and treating people as human beings, so that’s in my DNA. That doesn’t mean we’re out there coaching these guys soft. I think the coaches do a good job of coaching them hard, and obviously it would be easy if we were sitting here at 6-1 to continue to have that message.”

Mayo continued: “But, at 1-6, I guess it’s a natural question from you, should we change up our coaching style? Right now I think that we need to continue to work hard and continue to push the players to get the results on the field.”

In times like these, Mayo needs to lean on his core principles. The core principles he learned from Bill Belichick. He needs to reinforce them with his players but he also needs to get more out of them. It is time to be even tougher on the players and demand more. Players want to be coached, so coach them. Don’t go to the media and call their play soft. It doesn’t work. Mayo has already established that he is a players coach and that is his persona. It is too late to be the bad guy now.

The Patriots are an undisciplined football team that lacks accountability. If you want to fix that, it starts with the head coach. He has to be more accountable and hold his team to a higher standard. Until he does, the Patriots will continue to be soft and lose football games.

As a head coach, your team reflects you and your values. It is not about the record, it is about hard a team is playing. Right now, the Patriots are not playing hard enough for Jerod Mayo. That needs to change.