Patriots: James White speaks out on abysmal start to season

"As a former player, it's hard to watch," Devin White said on Saturday about the New England Patriots' awful start to the 2023 campaign.

The New England Patriots are in full-on survival mode after a disastrous start to the 2023-24 campaign — and former running back James White spoke out on the team's struggles through five weeks.

“As a former player, it's hard to watch. Guys like Devin [McCourty] and myself, they're not in the locker room; guys who embraced the Patriots culture, the winning mentality that we had on a day-to-day basis. Those guys are not there,” White said, according to the Boston Herald's Andrew Callahan.

“And I think obviously they've got good football players on the team, but guys that haven't been a part of that [culture] — maybe the guys' buy-in isn't quite exactly where it needs to be from a preparation standpoint or never just performance standpoint on Sundays.”

The former Patriots captain and three-time Super Bowl champion is clearly not happy with the culture of the team, which is a far cry from the perennial contender this squad was in the Tom Brady era.

McCourty also didn't pull punches when asked about the team.

“When you look at their offense and you look at the first five games, they've given up four touchdowns while they were on offense. You can't win any games like that,” the former safety explained. “I think the frustrating thing is, everyone wants New England to win. If you're in the New England area, it's all about Super Bowls. This team now is, ‘Are we going to win or are we going to just keep the game within two scores?'”

“When I look at this a little bit deeper, one of the things I see is they've got young players that don't seem to be developing at the rapid pace they used to. They need to have young players playing,” NFL Network analyst Scott Pioli echoed. “And looking a little bit deeper, I see the absence of [former offensive line coach] Dante Scarnecchia really impacting that offensive line and the players developing.”

The Patriots head to Las Vegas in Week 6 to play Jakobi Meyers and the Raiders. If that one ends in a loss, embracing the tank might be the only way forward for Bill Belichick and the Pats in 2023.