Mere hours after the New England Patriots secured what may be their least-celebrated victory in franchise history over the Buffalo Bills, Chairman and CEO Robert Kraft announced Jerod Mayo’s departure as head coach from the team.
The statement’s swiftness speaks volumes.
In all transparency, this writer had just filed an end-of-the-season column following postgame locker room and was on the way down a Gillette elevator to leave, when stadium employees began to shout the news to one another.
Cue the Grandpa Simpson gif. Time to bee-line it back to the press box to pen this column.
It feels excessively repetitive to declare what an unfair situation Mayo was put in as a rookie head coach. He was thrust into the role a year early, with arguably the league’s worst roster, and a cast of characters also learning on the job around him. Mayo was not set up for success in 2024.
But it’s hard to come up with ways he could return in 2025 for a sophomore season and find meaningful progress in Foxboro. The level of dysfunction around the Patriots was at an all-time high. Maybe it didn’t have the political backbiting of late-stage Belichick, but worse, it looked messy and unprofessional. It looked amateur. Even if Mayo’s players still had his back, they couldn’t figure out how to express their loyalty without offending the local folks who buy tickets and concessions at Gillette Stadium.
In theory, the Krafts could still have made blood sacrifices around Mayo, and tried to run it back in 2025 with new coordinators and position coaches. But it would be difficult to find qualified coaches enthusiastic to work with a head coach whose seat would be warm in his second season. Optically, it would also look terrible to just move on from Alex Van Pelt, the offensive coordinator who proved on Sunday that he not only successfully developed Drake Maye as an NFL starting quarterback, but Bazooka Joe Milton III as an NFL caliber backup, as well. Van Pelt will depart with Mayo, but at least he’s not the fall guy.
“For me, personally, this was one of the hardest decision I have ever made. I have known Jerod for 17 years,” Kraft penned in a statement the Patriots released postgame.
I don’t doubt that. Kraft very publicly compared his connection with Mayo to the devotion he felt with spouses last January. This choice had to be agonizing for him, personally, to reckon with what was the "right" thing to do, after so poorly setting up and supporting a person for whom he had great affection and admiration.
“I have always considered myself and my family custodians of a public asset. We have tremendous fans who expect and deserve a better product than we have delivered in recent years. I apologize for that. I have given much thought and consideration as to what actions I can take to expedite our return to championship contention and determined this move was the best option at this time,” the statement further read.
That weighing of options, and the choice to do what was clearly uncomfortable, is commendable. Kraft put aside his pride and friendship to move with urgency and put the franchise, and fans, first. While ownership surely felt the loss of seats, playoff games, and concession sales in their bottom line over the last couple of losing seasons, they will likely now also have to double-dip in salaries for two different coaching staffs.
Now, the Krafts have to act in the best faith possible and with open minds. In Belichick’s massive shadow, they showed how rusty they are at actually running a football team. They’ve got to turn the football operations back over to smart, experienced football people who know and trust one another.
Furthermore, Eliot Wolf and the Patriots’ front office has to commit to filling out the roster above a practice squad level of talent in 2025 – no excuses. They’re already saddled with the fourth overall pick in the draft, rather than the first, but they should squeeze as much capital out of it as possible. They should make an honest guy of Mayo by finally going out on a limb to “burn some cash” in free agency.
Mayo deserves a shot as a coordinator elsewhere, whenever he wants to embark on that next step. Fans deserve an ownership who admits their mistakes, and they have it in Foxborough.