(FOXBOROUGH, MA—WTIC News) New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft blames himself for the team’s failed season under now-former head coach Jerod Mayo.
“This whole situation is on me,” said Kraft at a Monday news conference held less than a day after he fired Mayo at the end of a 4-13 season. “I feel terrible for Jerod because I put him in an untenable situation.
I know that he has all the tools as a head coach to be successful in this league. He just needed more time before taking the job.”
Mayo had never been a head coach before replacing the legendary Bill Belichick last winter. He’s a longtime personal favorite of Kraft as a Super Bowl-winning player and as an assistant coach.
Kraft says firing Mayo is “one of the more difficult things I’ve had to do in my life because I had such affection for him, and I believe in him, and I really do believe he will go on and as he gets more experience, he’ll be successful.”
But the Patriots’ dreadful on-field performance under Mayo in 2024 was more than Kraft could bear. He says the team regressed, adding “I don’t like losing. I don’t like losing the way we lost. Just, things were not developing the way we would have liked and it was time to move on.”
“I don’t want to go through this next year, and we’re going to do what we gotta do to fix it.”
That means quickly bringing in a head coach who can put the Patriots back on track towards the NFL playoffs. Asked about former Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel, another former Patriots favorite who’s available, Kraft said he’s aware of several “wonderful” candidates.
The winning candidate can be beyond wonderful, but unless the Patriots dramatically upgrade their roster of players, the newcomer will be juggling another “untenable situation.”
Kraft acknowledged that Mayo was handed a less-than-stellar roster, admitting that recent Patriots drafts have been poor. Still, he says top player personnel executives Eliot Wolf and Alonzo Highsmith will remain on the job and play roles in the selection of a new head coach.