Jerod Mayo finished 4-13 in his lone season as head coach of the New England Patriots. (Photo by … [+]
Soon after Jerod Mayo finished his first season as head coach of the New England Patriots with a win, the 38-year-old learned it would be his last.
Team owner Robert Kraft took responsibility for the “untenable situation” during his Monday press conference at Gillette Stadium.
“I’m going to be very brief here and say this whole situation is on me,” Kraft told reporters. “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.”
A handpicked successor, Mayo had been announced as the 15th head coach in Patriots history on Jan. 12, 2024. He spent the previous five seasons on staff as the inside linebackers coach, and served as a de facto co-defensive coordinator alongside Steve Belichick during the 4-13 campaign that ended in Bill Belichick’s departure.
But another 4-13 campaign followed. It came to a close with a 23-16 win over the resting Buffalo Bills. In the process of defeating the No. 2 seed in the AFC, the rights to the No. 1 overall pick became the rights to the No. 4 overall pick in the 2025 NFL draft.
By 5:21 p.m. ET on Sunday, a statement had been released, confirming Mayo would be the franchise’s first-one-done head coach since Rod Rust went 1-15 in 1990.
“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,” Kraft said of Mayo. “And I really do believe he will go on and, as he gets more experience, he’ll be successful. It was not easy. He was a gentleman and accepted it that way.”
Selected in the first round of the 2008 class at No. 10 overall, Mayo started 93 of his 103 games at linebacker for the Patriots. The University of Tennessee product’s tenure spanned 802 tackles and 11 sacks to go with eight forced fumbles, seven fumble recoveries and three interceptions.
The run began with AP NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year honors and continued as a team captain from 2009 through 2015. The Super Bowl XLIX champion was twice named a Pro Bowler. And in 2010, he was named a first-team All-Pro after leading the league with 174 total tackles, including 113 solo.
After retiring, Mayo worked as an executive in finance at Optum before beginning his coaching career in 2019, in the same place he spent the entirety of his NFL career. But despite entering 2024 with a depleted roster and a projected win total of 4.5, the Patriots began with a 16-10 upset win over the Cincinnati Bengals on the road.
“In the important decisions in my life, I’ve always said I measure nine times and cut once,” added Kraft. “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 in the Cincinnati game. And then in midseason, I just think we started to regress.”
The Patriots turned to rookie quarterback Drake Maye after offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt’s side combined for 62 points through a 1-4 start. And on the other side of the ball under defensive coordinator DeMarcus Covington, an in-house promotion, the team finished with 12 takeaways and a league-low 28 sacks.
Comments were walked back along the way by Mayo, who acknowledged there would be rookie mistakes. Then losses to the Los Angeles Rams, Miami Dolphins and Indianapolis Colts led up to Week 14 bye. The losing streak extended to six games, for the second such time, capped off by a 40-7 Los Angeles Chargers rout at Gillette Stadium on Dec. 28.
That left Sunday’s 1 p.m. ET kickoff against the AFC East champions to go.
“This whole situation evolved, but I’d say over the last month I went back and forth,” Kraft reflected. “And I don’t know, in my life and my business, I make certain decisions. I know when it’s right and it just happened. It was very hard because of the personal relationship. I feel for Jerod and the human being he is. I felt guilty I put him in that position, but we’re moving on.”
Executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf and senior personnel executive Alonzo Highsmith will be involved in interviews as the Patriots now search for a third head coach in three years.
“From my point of view, we had a rough year last year — not ‘24, ‘23,” Kraft said of the organization’s rebuild. “And going through two years like that and then seeing where we were this year, especially the second half of the year, just told me, just made me feel we weren’t going in the right direction. And I don’t want to go through this next year. We’re going to do what we got to do to fix it.”
