On Monday afternoon, Patriots chairman and CEO Robert Kraft met with the media for just over 14 minutes to discuss the firing of former first-year head coach Jerod Mayo, and what the hiring process for his next head coach will look like.
“I’m gonna be very brief here, and say this whole situation is on me,” said Kraft in an opening statement. “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.
“In the end, I’m a fan of this team first. And now, I have to go out and find a coach who can get us back to the playoffs, and hopefully championships.”
Kraft said that over the last month, he went “back and forth” on the decision of whether or not to keep Mayo as the head coach after this season, saying it was especially hard given the personal relationship he’s forged with Mayo since drafting him 10th overall in the 2008 NFL Draft. But with the way the team had regressed down the stretch of the season, Kraft said he felt like it was a decision he had to make.
“I feel for Jerod, and the human being he is,” said Kraft. “I felt guilty [that] I put him in that position, but we’re moving on.”
“In the important decisions in my life, I’ve always said I measure nine times and cut once. And this was one of those situations. I guess the main thing for me is, I felt we regressed. The high point of everything, for me, was winning the Cincinnati game. And then in midseason, I just think we started to regress.”
When asked if fan reaction played into his decision to relieve Mayo of his coaching duties, Kraft replied, “I’m the biggest fan.”
“I understand,” said Kraft. “And since the day we bought this team, and I realized what a privilege it was, and how lucky we were as a family, that this is the only business we’re involved in where I see ourselves - we don’t own this team, it’s owned by the fans of this region. And we’re custodians of a very special asset of the community. And that’s why - that helps me try to make decisions that, if it was just personal, would be different.”
Kraft made it clear that Mayo did not know he was being fired before Sunday’s win against the Bills, and that he did not have any input on the coaching staff’s approach heading into the game with the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft on the line.
“He was a man,” Kraft said when asked how Mayo reacted to receiving the news after his postgame press conference. “Look, it was 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, as he gets more experience - he’ll be successful.
“It was not easy. He was a gentleman, and he accepted it that way.”
Upon Mayo being fired, the Patriots will now have to payout whatever was left on his contract, along with the salaries of whatever additional members of the coaching staff are released over the next few weeks. And with the team having the most cap space in the NFL headed into the offseason, fans and media have wondered if Kraft would be unwilling to spend as much as he can on the roster, given the money he’d be spending on fired coaches.
Kraft said money being spent on Mayo and others will have no bearing on what he spends on his football team for 2025.
“The answer is no,” said Kraft. “We've always had a situation where we spend to the cap, and if we go over - we have never told any coach, or limited the spending. The only thing we've said is, ‘If you exceed the cap, we'd like to see it leveled out over three years,’ you know, so that we never get way out of hand.
“But spending to the cap or above the cap is not - we want to win. That's our priority first.”
Kraft said that once he hires the new head coach of the Patriots, that coach will make a final determination on who will be joining his coaching staff. Whether the likes of offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt - who is reportedly expected to be handed his walking papers - or defensive coordinator DeMarcus Covington are back in New England will be up to Kraft’s new hire.
“Yeah, we'll wait until we bring that coach in,” said Kraft. “Obviously, he's going to have [a] big input on who the players are and who the coaches are. It'll be his decision.”
When asked who aside from himself and team president Jonathan Kraft would be a part of the interview process for their next head coach, Kraft mentioned executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf and senior personnel executive Alonzo Highsmith.
“Does that mean Eliot and his staff are going to continue on, or will the coaching hire also impact your front office?” asked MassLive’s Karen Guregian in a follow-up.
“We are looking for people working together,” said Kraft. “They will be staying on.”
2024 was Wolf’s fifth season as a member of the Patriots front office, but his first as the head of the operation, having previously served under de facto general manager Bill Belichick.
In the lead-up to the 2024 season, Mayo routinely spoke about his constant collaboration with Wolf on roster building and personnel decisions, which led to a team that ultimately finished with one of the worst records in the NFL.
Hearing that Wolf would both be a part of the franchise moving forward, as well as help the Krafts make their next head coaching hire, felt like a lot to put on the plate of someone who had just failed so spectacularly in his first year.
When asked what stands out about Wolf after his subpar first season, Kraft pointed to the draft.
“I think that the department evolved a lot, and a lot of things were changed,” said Kraft. “We changed our grading system this year and have done things.
“Our drafts have not been good for a while. If you want to compete long term and be good in this league, you've got to have good drafts because those rookie contracts allow you to go out and get the people you need to surround people. It looks like we lucked out; we maybe have two quarterbacks. But I think we'll hopefully see a big improvement this year.”
Whether it’s poor drafts, bad coaching or roster mismanagement, the Patriots have missed the playoffs in four of the last five seasons.
Since starting the 2019 season 8-0, his team has gone 37-57 - a record that includes their playoff losses to Tennessee in 2019 and Buffalo in 2021.
And after letting Tom Brady walk away after the 2019 season, the future Hall of Fame quarterback went on to win Super LV with Tampa Bay in his first season with the Buccaneers.
This is all in staunch contrast to Kraft’s first 25 years of ownership, where the team won 6 Super Bowls, 10 AFC Championships, and 19 AFC East titles.
No franchise in the history of the NFL had ever done more winning in a 25-year period than the Patriots did in Kraft’s first quarter-century of ownership.
Five years into his second, things are headed in the wrong direction.
“I don't like losing,” said Kraft. “I don't like losing the way we lost. Things were not developing the way we would have liked. It was time to move on.”