The Patriots faced some dreaded effort questions after their 40-7 loss to the Chargers.

Defensive tackle Daniel Ekuale told the Herald on Saturday that he saw players giving up toward the end of the fourth quarter.

Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo was somewhat contradictory when discussing his players’ effort against the Chargers.

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Mayo initially told reporters and said on WEEI that he didn’t see a lack of effort in the loss.

“Guys were still flying around, giving good effort, and it was just more about just execution as a whole,” Mayo told reporters. “So I didn’t see that.”

Later, however, he did cite a specific example of players seemingly giving up toward the end of the game.

“I mean, look, there are a couple field goal blocks that guys didn’t get their hands up. But besides that, I felt like the effort was good,” Mayo said on the radio. “And it’s hard. Look, it is hard, like you (WEEI host and former Patriots tight end Jermaine Wiggins) used to be a player, it’s hard when you know the score kind of gets out of control like that to keep pushing on. And I would say the majority, most of, if not all of the guys were still going out there trying to make a play.”