Jerod Mayo Sees ‘Dramatic Drop-off’ With Patriots Offensive Line Groups

FOXBORO, Mass. — The New England Patriots offensive line got embarrassed in Tuesday’s joint practice with the Philadelphia Eagles.

It wasn’t nearly as bad when the two teams met back at Gillette Stadium on Thursday for a preseason matchup, but the Patriots had the benefit of going against Philadelphia’s backups and not its star-studded defensive line featuring Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis and Josh Sweat.

First-year head coach Jerod Mayo seems to have some confidence in the starting offensive line, which against the Eagles consisted of (from left to right) Vederian Lowe, Sidy Sow, David Andrews, Mike Onwenu and Chukwuma Okorafor.

That grouping certainly won’t inspire a ton of confidence going against the league’s elite pass rushers, but after that, it gets even more shaky.

And Mayo clearly didn’t like what he saw in the 14-13 loss as he called out the unit.

“There were definitely some ups and some downs,” Mayo said. “I would say there’s a dramatic drop-off, not really physically, but just knowing what to do between the first line and the second and third guys. They have to get better as a whole, as a unit. They just have to get better, and that comes from playing football games. We have another preseason game coming up. We’re going to play. That’s the only way you’re going to get better at football is playing football.”

Jacoby Brissett, who played three underwhelming series in the first quarter and had the lowlight of the game by throwing an end zone interception, gave a more positive assessment of the unit.

“I thought we had ample amount of time back there,” Brissett said.

The Patriots rotated in linemen after the first quarter. They first subbed in center Nick Leverett for David Andrews for Drake Maye’s first series of the game and then replaced the right side of the line with rookies Layden Robinson and Caedan Wallace while other linemen filtered in throughout the rest of the game.

Patriots fans held their collective breath when Maye took his first big hit of the preseason. Nolan Smith beat Lowe despite getting chipped by Kevin Harris to get to Maye for the sack. Joe Milton III was also sacked twice in his limited playing time.

The Patriots had difficulty when it came to snapping the ball, too. New England fumbled three snaps and recovered two of them. But the final one from third-string center Liam Fornadel with Bailey Zappe in at quarterback prevented the Patriots from putting together a game-winning drive with the Eagles recovering the ball at New England’s 33-yard line with 1:46 left.

Mayo certainly sees plenty of question marks along the Patriots offensive line. And they don’t have much time left in the preseason to figure things out and get answers to what arguably is the weakest positional group on the team.