The New England Patriots were always expected to be near the bottom of the AFC standings this season, but the 2024 campaign was apparently worse than those at the top of the Patriots organization expected. The Patriots promoted Jerod Mayo to head coach to take over for Bill Belichick (who they pushed out after it seemed he’d lost a step in the modern NFL), but Mayo’s tough love approach didn’t seem to go over especially well with the locker room and there were rumblings coming into Week 18 that Mayo could be out after just one year as head coach.
What made the timing of those rumors fascinating was the Patriots held the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft coming into their game against the Bills, who were locked into the 2-seed in the AFC and were going to be playing reserves. Organizationally speaking, losing that game was in the team’s best interest, but Mayo certainly didn’t have much incentive to drop the game if he was potentially out of a job either way. Naturally, the Patriots beat the Bills 23-17 to drop to the No. 4 pick in the Draft, as Joe Milton quarterbacked most of the game to get New England a win, and less than an hour after the game Mayo was fired, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
We will undoubtedly get a full post-mortem on the Mayo era sooner than later from Patriots insiders, as there was clearly a disconnect within the organization from top to bottom. Mayo is certainly not without blame, but one does wonder if, given how poorly things seemed to be between Belichick and the organization at the end of his tenure, the successor hand-picked by Belichick was ever going to get much of a fair shake from the Pats — or what this year would’ve needed to look like for Mayo to make it to Year 2.
The expected frontrunner for the job is Mike Vrabel, as the former Patriots star linebacker was fired after a strong tenure as the Titans head coach last year and spent the 2024 season as a consultant with the Browns. He figures to get back into the mix for a head coaching job this year, and the Patriots would be a natural fit. The Patriots also could try to bring in either of the Lions coordinators, as Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn are both presumed to be head coaches somewhere next season.
