While Jerod Mayo was fired as Patriots head coach, he's not the only one to blame for disastrous season
FOXBORO -- Jerod Mayo is out as head coach of the New England Patriots after just one season. He was dismissed shortly after wrapping up a 4-13 season with a Week 18 win over the Buffalo Bills.
But he's definitely not the only one responsible for the disaster that was the 2024 New England Patriots. Owner Robert Kraft and VP of player personnel Eliot Wolf own plenty of that pie as well.
The decision to fire Mayo isn't all that surprising, as the Patriots were a giant mess in Mayo's one season. It's the swiftness of the firing that caught many by surprise, and raises more questions for Kraft.
In firing Mayo a little over an hour after the conclusion of Sunday's 23-16 win over the Bills -- which cost the Patriots the No. 1 pick in the draft -- it's clear that Mayo couldn't do anything to save his bacon on Sunday. So why let a lame duck coach take the sideline for a game that could ultimately hurt the franchise for years to come?
It's hard to get players to play to lose, and the Bills really out-tanked the Patriots on Sunday by sending out Mitch Trubisky and Mike White at quarterback. But Mayo was clearly coaching to win on Sunday.
It was a great moment for Mayo, who felt vindicated with the win. Good for him, we guess. But with that victory, the Patriots will now pick fourth in the upcoming draft.
Having the top pick would have opened a lot of other avenues for New England this offseason. The Patriots are set at quarterback with Drake Maye, and they could have traded that pick for a nice bounty to QB-needy teams. They could have potentially acquired another early-round pick this year future firsts. It was a way to adding more potentially elite talent to a roster that desperately needs elite talent.
Instead the Patriots will draft fourth, and chances are no one is going to come knocking down their door for that selection. They should still be able to add a top receiver for Maye or a left tackle to protect him, but the Patriots need a lot more this offseason.
Kraft will talk with reporters at Gillette Stadium on Monday afternoon (which you can watch on WBZ-TV and CBS News Boston) so maybe we'll get an answer on why Mayo was allowed to coach on Sunday.
Did Jerod Mayo deserve to be fired after one season?
Mayo made his share of mistakes, and they were plentiful. Those mistakes came on the sideline and in the media. We'll get to that in a minute.
But this disastrous season was not entirely his fault. He was put in a near impossible position of replacing Bill Belichick, and the Patriots gave him one of the NFL's worst rosters. Belichick won just four games with a similar team in 2023, and the Patriots wanted a first-year head coach to do better?
The initial plan was for Belichick to get the NFL wins record and then ride off into the sunset in the near future. Instead, he was let go after his four-win campaign, and Mayo was thrown into a position he was not ready for. He had no experience as a coordinator, let alone a head coach. But because this was the plan Kraft had envisioned years ago, he didn't have a problem bumping up the timeline. That was a mistake.
All that being said, there were plenty of mistakes made by the front office that set up Mayo for failure. That falls on de facto GM Eliot Wolf, who at the moment, still has his job in New England.
The Patriots started 12 different players along the offensive line in 2024, two off from the NFL record. Wolf didn't sign an actual left tackle in the offseason, instead trying to plug that massive hole with converted guards or right tackles. Chuks Okorafor was brought in to fill the left tackle void, and he was benched just a quarter into the season. He left the New England circus after Week 1, which is now seen as a genius move on his part. The inexperienced offensive line the rest of the way led to a whole lot of QB sacks and even more pre-snap penalties
New England's receiving corps was also among the worst in the NFL, as Wolf missed badly on second-round pick Ja'Lynn Polk. The brass viewed Polk as a plug-and-play player that would come in an catch a ton of passes as a rookie. He had just a dozen catches on the season. The other receiver drafted was Javon Baker in the fourth round, and he caught his first NFL pass on Sunday.
The Patriots traded out of the pick that turned into L.A. receiver Ladd McConkey, who finished his rookie season with 82 receptions for 1,149 yards and seven touchdowns.
Drake Maye and Christian Gonzalez were the only bright spots on the roster. Outside of Pro Bowler Brenden Schooler, the rest of the roster regressed.
So Mayo was not set up to succeed in New England, and he likely would have gotten another shot. But he is not blameless in this, and as the head coach, it's on him when the team looks -- and acts -- like a mess on and off the field.
Jerod Mayo did himself no favors
As expected, Mayo had his issues on the sideline. There were problems with his clock management and he was afraid to get aggressive on offense. Some of that likely had to do with the personnel and wanting to protect Maye, but the Patriots punted the ball away in several situations when they had nothing to lose. Those were missed opportunities to let the young offense grow and gain experience in a game setting.
But Mayo's sporadic messaging was an even bigger factor in the team's dysfunction. There was rarely a clear message from Mayo, and he spent most of his Monday's walking back or correcting something he had said previously.
Mayo had a lot of fans early in his tenure when he said the Patriots were "ready to burn some cash" in the offseason. Then the organization didn't burn much cash -- outside of re-signing their own players -- and Mayo had to clarify what he meant.
He promised more than four wins, which was an outrageous proclamation ahead of the season. He made it clear that he believed Maye had outplayed Jacoby Brissett in the preseason, only to name Brissett the starter a few days later. And all of that was before the season even kicked off.
The Patriots won in Week 1, upsetting the Bengals in Cincinnati, but then proceeded to lose six straight. After the team's 32-16 loss to the lowly Jaguars in London, Mayo called his team "soft," only to walk it back and say he meant they "played soft" when he returned stateside.
The Patriots won two of their next three games, so perhaps that "soft" comment worked. But it was only temporary, as the team lost six straight after its Week 10 win in Chicago.
Did Patriots poor play out of the bye seal Mayo's fate?
The Patriots had the latest bye week in the NFL, and there was hope they'd come out as a better team after Week 14. Instead, things just got worse for New England as the season spiraled down the drain.
The Pats were blown out by the Cardinals in Arizona, 30-17, in Week 15. When Mayo was questioned about not calling a QB sneak for Maye on a critical fourth-and-1 in the second half, he essentially threw Van Pelt under the bus by responding, "You said it, I didn't." Mayo walked that back the next day, saying it was his call as the head coach.
After playing the Bills close in Buffalo in Week 16, the Patriots were completely embarrassed by the L.A. Chargers at Gillette Stadium, 40-7. Players weren't ready for that punch in the mouth, and Mayo once again had mixed messaging before the game. He said on 98.5 The Sports Hub's pregame show that Antonio Gibson would start over the fumble-happy Rhamondre Stevenson, only for Stevenson to be out there for the start of the game a short time later.
His explanation? A simple "coach's decision" without any substance.
There were loud boos and "Fire Mayo" chants in the stands that afternoon in Foxboro, which prompted linebacker Jahlani Tavai to lash out at fans. Mayo benched Tavai for the first quarter on Sunday, but that was just the latest example of a player feeling free enough to say whatever they wanted.
Polk famously said that he had the best hands in the NFL early during his struggles. Christian Barmore lashed out at Providence police on social media over a registration issue that was his fault. Baker went on Instagram Live while he was getting a ticket from Mass. State Police.
It's no surprise that Tavai felt comfortable enough to go after the paying customers ahead of the final game of the season. Mayo barely had control early in the season, and had completely lost it by season's end. Players never quit on him and continued to play for Mayo, but he struggled to keep the team connected and together. As a former player, getting the squad to be a functioning, cohesive unit was supposed to be his strong suit.
The 2024 season was a disaster for the Mayo, Kraft, and the New England Patriots. They were given a chance to get the No. 1 pick and put the franchise in a much better spot, but they couldn't even pull that off. They somehow got out-tanked by a 13-3 Bills team.
Now Kraft is left to pick up the pieces after his hand-picked successor led to the most disastrous season's of his ownership. Let's hope he puts his next head coach in a much better position to succeed.
