Here in New England, we’ve been a little used to hearing about internal dysfunction in recent seasons, and it sounds like the final month leading up to Jerod Mayo’s departure yesterday wasn’t exactly great.
In fact, it appears this final week may have been difficult for Mayo’s staff members.
According to Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, staff members within the building appeared to have lost confidence when it came to their futures, which set up a difficult situation as the year began to wind down. It led to uncertainty to those who were hoping to survive beyond the end of this season, which Breer explained also led to people starting to point fingers as things when it became clear they were no longer safe.
“I think there’s been signs of this happening all week,” said Breer on NBC Sports Boston. “I think if you’ve talked to enough people in the organization, I hate to put it this way, but I think there were starting to be some dissension and some people pointing fingers in different directions. I don’t think coaching and scouting were quite on the same page. I think there were factions on the coaching staff. There’s a lot of the stuff that you saw in 2023. I think it was pretty clear that people there knew things were… Something was to happen. Whether it was a single pound of flesh or the whole operation being blown up, someone was going to have to pay for what happened this year.”
“I think you see what you see inside of a lot of bad organizations as a season circles the drain, which is people retreating to their corners and trying to figure out if there are ways to save their jobs.”
Breer talked recently about some of the problems that further hampered Mayo’s success this season, which he believes went far beyond the now-former head coach. Part of that remains the lack of support staff and the “infrastructure” needed to really compete in today’s NFL.
“I don’t care if you bring Vince Lombardi into coach. They do not have the infrastructure right now,” said Breer. “I’m not even talking about players, and the roster is bad. They do not have the infrastructure to be successful in the NFL in 2025. Bottom line is more than one person. Jerod Mayo wasn’t good in 2024, but there’s a huge number of coaches who couldn’t have done a whole lot more with what they had.”
The decision to let Mayo go was clearly premeditated, given the lengthy statement that was seemingly already written ahead of a firing, which occurred less than an hour after the game. It caught many by surprise, including coaches who were apparently getting ready to leave the stadium, only to be called back in.
“I have it on pretty good authority that there were coaches that were actually leaving the building that were called back in to be informed of the decision,” said Breer. “At least the staff, they left for the day to go see their families and whatnot and got called back in to be informed of the decision. It, I think, came as a surprise, at least timing-wise.”
“I think everybody knew change was on the table after the season that they had. But timing-wise, I think it surprised most people in there how fast it happened.”
Robert Kraft spoke to the media on Monday, and said that this decision has been on his mind “over the last month,” and he blames himself for Mayo’s failure.
“I’d say over the last month, I went back and forth, 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,” said Kraft when asked when it was he felt he needed to let Mayo go. “It was very hard because 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.”
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
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Nice article Ian. Both you and Breer are helping the rest of us to be better informed…
Appreciate that, George. I generally try and dig for interesting bits that no one has talked about, especially ones that hopefully give some insight into things we all want to know about. I’m sure this probably won’t be the last judging by what we’ve heard so far, so it should definitely be an interesting offseason.