Melbourne veteran Jordan Lewis admits the Demons are playing without confidence and instinct as they sit languishing second last on the AFL ladder.

The Demons are copping it from all corners after capitulating this season, and their four-time premiership-winning recruit Lewis struggled to explain their drop off.

Melbourne snapped a 12-year finals drought last season and made the preliminary final, but they’ve won just five of 18 games in 2019.

Lewis admitted their fundamental skills have been poor and conceded they cannot close out games even when they are competitive.

“It does come down to the players’ ability to execute the basics, we just make the game so hard for ourselves,” Lewis told Fox Sport’s AFL 360.

“Losing takes away a lot, it takes away your confidence, it takes away your instinct, it takes away the synergy between different lines because you do become a little bit unpredictable.

“If you go through a season and have some good wins and maybe one loss … the loss would dissipate by Monday. But when it’s consecutive losses, you’re not only thinking about the one you had on the weekend but the one you had the weekend before.

“It’s been tough, it’s been hard to deal with and hard to come to things like this and talk about how bad it is.

“Unfortunately, you can’t put your finger on one little thing and fix it. It’s probably a summer of work to get players back to playing their best football.”

Lewis said the playing group had to take responsibility because the coaches’ messages simply weren’t being replicated on the field.