During the Patriots’ bye week, first-year head coach Jerod Mayo made headlines during his sitdown interview with NBC Sports Boston’s Tom E. Curran, where he told the longtime WEEI contributor that he believes he will improve as a head coach in his second year at the helm compared to his first.
This, of course, implies Mayo will be back for a second year as head coach of the Patriots - which feels like an odd guarantee at the moment with the team sitting at 3-10 with four games remaining on their 2024 schedule.
On Monday’s edition of The Greg Hill Show, WEEI’s Greg Hill followed up with Mayo on this point during his weekly “Mayo Monday” appearance with the show.
“You know that you signed up for this, so you know that there’s speculation left and right about all this stuff,” said Hill. “Has Robert [Kraft] told you that you’re back again next year?”
“My main focus has just been really getting this team ready to play this week,” Mayo answered, clearly sidestepping the question from the longtime morning host.
After a quick lost phone connection from Mayo, Hill asked for a clarification.
“So he has not told you, or has told you that you’re back next year?” asked Hill.
“No no - I’m not gonna get into all of that stuff,” Mayo said abruptly. “Look, here I go again dancing a little bit. But look, my focus is on the guys in this room, the coaches on this staff, and running this game that we have coming up.”
From there, it was on to the next topic.
Nothing more to add, as Mayo clearly didn’t want to touch anything related to job security with a 10-foot pole.
If Mayo were to lose his job after only one season, he would join Rod Rust as the only head coach in franchise history to go one-and-done - which came all the way back in 1990.
In his lone season as head coach, Rust went 1-15.
Mayo will continue working on shoring up a second year on the job in Week 15, as New England hits the road for a game in Arizona against the Cardinals (6-7).
Arizona, coming off a 30-18 loss to Seattle in Week 14, is currently listed as a 6.5-point favorite against the Patriots at both BetMGM and FanDuel.