New England Patriots Owner Takes the Blame for Jerod Mayo’s Lack of Success

New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo walks on the field prior to an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills in Foxborough, Mass., on Jan. 5, 2025. Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

After just one season on the job—which was his first as a head coach at any level—Jerod Mayo was fired by the New England Patriots on Sunday. It was shortly after a rare victory for New England as it defeated the Buffalo Bills, 23-16, to finish the season with a 4-13 record.

Patriots owner, Robert Kraft, called relieving Mayo of his duties “one of the hardest decisions I have ever made,” also citing his 17-year relationship with the former Patriots’ player-turned-coach.

One day later, Kraft expanded on firing Mayo in a press conference. Even though Mayo was the one who lost his job, Kraft said the former coach is not the one to blame, and instead the fault lies in Kraft, himself.

“This whole situation is on me,” Kraft said. “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 implied that Mayo simply wasn’t ready to be the Patriots’ head coach just yet, after he had spent the five previous seasons as New England’s inside linebackers coach. The 38-year-old was the second-youngest head coach in the NFL this past season and had no previous experience as either a head coach or as a coordinator.

However, one also has to wonder if the outcome of Sunday’s game played a role in the dismissal, as New England won the game but lost its hold on the top spot for the 2025 NFL Draft. The Patriots were in the pole position to draft first overall entering Week 18 and simply had to do what they had done a lot of this season, and that’s lost to the Bills.

Even with New England pulling starting quarterback Drake Maye after just one pass attempt and replacing him with a sixth-round rookie in Joe Milton, who was making his NFL debut, New England still found a way to win. Buffalo played a part in the domino effect of New England winning, then losing the No. 1 draft spot, and then the firing of Mayo as the Bills sat most of their starters, including Josh Allen, for nearly the entire game.

The victory by New England, coupled with losses by the Tennessee Titans, Cleveland Browns, and New York Giants, means that the Patriots went from drafting first overall to now picking fourth in April’s draft.

The Patriots went 4-13 in both Bill Belichick’s final year in 2023 and Mayo’s lone season in 2024, but there was regression on defense under the new coach, even though that side of the ball is Mayo’s specialty. New England led the NFL in yards per rush attempt allowed in 2023 and ranked seventh in total defense. However, the Pats slipped to 14th in yards per rush allowed in 2024 and dropped to 22nd in total defense.

Belichick spoke about Mayo’s firing during his weekly Monday appearance on The Pat McAfee Show.

“The Patriots’ situation, honestly, I don’t have too much of a comment on that,” Belichick said. “Robert Kraft, Jonathan Kraft, Robyn Glaser, they’re the decision-makers there—who exactly does what and so forth. Mayo was hand-picked by Robert but in the end, the decision-making is something they’d have to comment on and identify. They’re the ones really making the call there, so they’re the ones that should comment on that. But I really don’t know from the outside looking in.

“They haven’t called me and asked, so I really don’t know.”

One person that many expect to get a call from the Krafts is Mike Vrabel. Like Mayo, he played linebacker under Belichick but unlike the newly fired coach, Vrabel has lots of coaching experience. He spent six years as the Titans’ head coach before serving the 2024 NFL season as a consultant with the Browns.

Many Patriots fans are also following potential breadcrumbs left by Vrabel as shortly after the Patriots’ head coaching job became available, Vrabel changed the avatar on his X account to one of him in a Patriots uniform from back in his playing days.

As it stands, the Patriots’ head coach opening is one of five in the NFL. The Jacksonville Jaguars also fired their head coach, Doug Pederson, after Week 18, while the Chicago Bears, New Orleans Saints, and New York Jets fired their head coaches midseason.

There could certainly be more on the way as both Vrabel and Belichick were relieved of their duties last year after Black Monday, which is what the day after the end of the regular season is unofficially known as, due to the various coach and GM terminations.