After a single season as Patriots head coach, Jerod Mayo's time in New England is done.
The Patriots didn't bother waiting until Monday to dismiss him. They announced Mayo's firing Sunday afternoon with a personal statement from owner Robert Kraft, just hours after a season-ending win over a Bills team that was resting key players ahead of the playoffs.
A former Patriots linebacker who spent his entire eight-season playing career with New England, Mayo was a member of Bill Belichick's coaching staff for five seasons before being named as Belichick's successor last January. Expectations, meanwhile, were low in 2024 on a talent-depleted roster built around a rookie quarterback.
So what went wrong for Mayo that prompted the Patriots to give up on one of their own, who was hand-selected by Kraft, after just one season?
Was Mayo doomed from the start?
Per a report from The Athletic's Jeff Howe, there was doubt about the hiring from the start among Patriots insiders. According to the report, members of the Belichick regime were skeptical from the beginning that Mayo was ready for the job when he was hired at 37 years old.
Said skeptics believed that Mayo "needed more experience game planning, involvement in play calling, handling bigger situational decisions," and that New England's 4-13 season played out "about how we thought," per the report.
Public gaffes pile up
Mayo's inexperience shone early in the season around the most important decision that that he would make: Who would start at quarterback for the Patriots?
Drake Maye was obviously the quarterback of the future when the Patriots drafted him last spring. But there was debate in the preseason over whether it made sense to play Maye as a rookie on a roster lacking talent at skill positions and on the offensive line.
Before Maye took over in Week 6, Mayo initially decided that Maye should learn from the bench and named veteran Jacoby Brissett as New England's starter. The decision didn't raise eyebrows. Starting Maye on the bench instead of risking his health and development behind a shaky offensive line made sense. But how Mayo reached his decision certainly did.
Before announcing Brissett as starter, Mayo declared that Maye had outplayed Brissett on the field, an assessment that was backed up by preseason statistics.
"It's true competition, and I would say at this current point, Drake has outplayed Jacoby," Mayo said on Aug. 26.
The proclamation suggested that Maye could end up as New England's starter. But two days later, Mayo named Brissett as the starting quarterback, setting Mayo up to walk back his previous comments.
The public explanation didn't make sense, even if the unspoken sentiment that Maye was better off on the bench did. It wasn't a fireable offense, of course. But it amounted to a gaffe in public that helped set the tone for Mayo's lone season on the job.
And it was a shock to the system in New England after two-plus decades of a Belichick regime playing its cards extremely close to the vest. Then came an early-season statement from Mayo that drew direct criticism from Belichick himself.
Mayo 'soft' comment draws Belichick's ire
The Patriots traveled to London to face the Jaguars in Week 6, Maye's first game as a starter. They opened a 10-0 lead only to give up 25 straight points en route to a 32-16 loss. After the game, Mayo criticized Patriots players as "soft."
"We're a soft football team across the board," <a data-i13n="cpos:8;pos:1" href="https://sports.yahoo.com/mayo-calls-patriots-soft-football-172606448.html">Mayo told reporters</a> postgame. "We talk about what makes a tough football team, and that's being able to run the ball, that's being able to stop the run, and that's being able to cover kicks. And we did none of those today."
Belichick took issue with those comments about a roster made up of many of the same players that he had coached the previous season. He expressed his thoughts on the Pat McAfee Show the following Monday.
"I'm kind of hurt for those guys, because to call them soft, they're not soft," <a data-i13n="cpos:9;pos:1" href="https://x.com/PatMcAfeeShow/status/1848416058819895503">Belichick said</a>. "They were the best team in the league last year against the run. ... "I feel bad for the defensive players on that one because those guys, that's a tough group. ... Those guys are all tough players. Like, they'll strap it up and go."
Calling his players soft in public also wasn't a fireable offense. But it was a sign of continued turbulence in New England. And as the season wore on, play on the field continued to suffer, and the losses piled up. The losses were accompanied by game management decisions that repeatedly drew criticism in Patriots media.
New England entered Sunday's finale ranked 31st in the league in yards per game, ahead of only the likewise abysmal Bears. Its defense was ranked 21st in yards allowed and 23rd in points allowed per game. The Patriots finished the season with a minus-128 point differential, good for 28th in the league.
Outside of Maye's upside, there was little positive to take from a 4-13 campaign that produced a last-place finish in the AFC East. Near the end, public sentiment had turned against Mayo. He faced "fire Mayo" chants at Gillette Stadium during a 40-7 home loss to the Chargers in Week 17 that dropped the Patriots to 3-13.
A week later, the Patriots did just that.
Did Mayo get a fair shake?
Is it fair for the Patriots to have fired Mayo after his first year as a head coach? Mayo's roster was one of the worst in the league, and the expectations this season were not to win. Does it make more sense to give him another year to learn from his mistakes and develop?
The decision in New England was ultimately no. And it was made amid an urgency to get things right around Maye and the hope that he ultimately leads the franchise back into contention. The decision on Sunday gives the Patriots a jumpstart on the coaching carousel as they seek out Mayo's successor.
Will they look to another former Patriot in free-agent head coach Mike Vrabel? He's a coveted candidate who's expected to draw wide interest a year removed from his last season as Titans head coach. Will they look to an offensive-minded coach to amplify Maye's development? Whomever they hire, the Patriots want to have their choice of candidates, and starting the process early gives them a leg up.
Fair or not, Mayo's time in New England is done. And the old idiom stands true. When following a legend, it's better to replace the guy who replaced rather than to replace the guy.
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