NFLNFLThe Krafts’ Belichick succession plan failed. Now, one year later, they get a do-over.
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By Nora PrinciottiJan. 6, 7:08 am UTC • 6 min
Two years ago, as Jerod Mayo was starting to get interest as a head coaching candidate after the 2022 NFL season, Robert Kraft made a deal with Mayo to keep the former Patriots linebacker-turned-rising defensive coach in New England. What few knew at the time was that the agreement was actually a succession plan. In return for sticking around at a time when Bill Belichick’s staff was suffering acutely from a years-long brain drain, and when Belichick himself was assumed to be nearing retirement, Mayo got assurance that when that time came, he would be the Patriots’ next head coach. What Kraft got from the deal, in addition to keeping a good young coach on staff, was a plan that could let him seamlessly extend the Belichick era into the next one. The system would go on.
Now, two 4-13 seasons later, Kraft has fired both men. And the Patriots need a new system.
Kraft fired Mayo on Sunday after only one year on the job, just over an hour after the Patriots’ season ended with a win against the Bills. Mayo’s lone season as head coach was a bad one: a discombobulated, dysfunctional four-win campaign that included two six-game losing streaks. But the move was still a surprise given how tightly Robert Kraft and his son, team president Jonathan Kraft, had tethered themselves to Mayo. This was their handpicked coach, after all, elevated to replace Belichick without a single other interview having been conducted after Belichick was let go last year. The elder Kraft, in particular, is known to be sentimental. But it was sentimentality for the past that got New England into this mess. What the Krafts hoped would be a smooth transition became, in reality, a messy extension of a broken leadership structure at a time when they should have taken a chance to start fresh. At least they’ll get a do-over now.
Mayo’s job probably was safe for most of the year. Even within the last 10 days, NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport, ESPN’s Dan Graziano, and NBC Sports Boston’s Tom Curran had all said they felt Mayo was going to be back for the 2025 season. Expectations for Mayo had been set low—after stressing in recent seasons how badly he wanted the team to make the playoffs, Kraft struck a different tone at the NFL owners’ meetings last March when he acknowledged that the 2024 Patriots “might struggle.” The Patriots muddled through the early part of the season, but rookie quarterback Drake Maye gave the offense a boost and hope for the future when he took over in mid-October, and there was a chance New England could show progress in how it finished out the year.
Instead, the final month of the season was a disaster. After its Week 14 bye, New England finished 1-3, the sole win coming Sunday against a Buffalo team that was resting starters. The win happened to knock the Patriots out of the running for the no. 1 pick in the 2025 draft. The other three games were losses to the Cardinals, Bills (whose starters played that time), and Chargers, in a demoralizing 40-7 defeat last Saturday.
If there was one specific moment in which Mayo lost his job, it had to have come around that Chargers game. On that day, it seemed like every area in which his Patriots team had struggled the most was highlighted.
The offensive line was overwhelmed, to the point where Maye took several scary hits, including one that briefly forced him out of the game to be evaluated for a head injury. Maye was cleared to go back in the game, but when his head coach kept him on the field relatively late in a blowout, the New England fans who were still there began chanting, “Fire Mayo!”
Patriots receivers had their typically lackluster production while Chargers rookie wideout Ladd McConkey went for 94 yards and two touchdowns. New England originally owned the 34th draft pick that the Chargers used to select McConkey, but traded out of that slot to move down and take two receivers, Ja’Lynn Polk and Javon Baker. Polk and Baker have combined for 87 receiving yards this season, fewer than McConkey collected in a single game against New England.
And the dysfunction that has bubbled up in the locker room and through Mayo’s staff at times did so again in Week 17.
Earlier that week, second-year defensive lineman Keion White questioned his future with the team in an interview with MassLive’s Karen Guregian. His comments got attention because White is a young, promising player who is under contract and would presumably have a secure future. Asked about this in a radio interview before the game, Mayo said that he’d spoken with White and that “the way he said it isn’t what he meant.”
Only after the game, White was asked to clarify his comment. His answer? “Exactly what I said.”
That wasn’t the only mini-drama. In his pre-game radio interview, Mayo said that Antonio Gibson would start at running back over Rhamondre Stevenson, presumably since Stevenson had been struggling with fumbles. The NFL Network broadcast crew indicated during the game that Mayo had said the same in their production meeting. But when the game started, it was Stevenson in the lineup. Asked about the change after the game, Mayo was curt, saying only that it was “a coach’s decision.” It was an odd moment of unnecessary messiness, something that’s come to characterize this Patriots season.
That game was the low point in a disappointing slog of a year. As the head coach, Mayo will take the majority of the blame, though he’s certainly not the only one responsible. For all the Patriots’ coaching foibles, it’s hard to look at this roster, especially the offensive line and the receiving corps, and think that this could have been a competitive team.
None of these are new struggles, exactly. The 2023 Patriots went 4-13 and struggled due to their bad offensive line and limited passing game before Belichick was let go. That team also had dissatisfied players who made comments to the press and an offensive coordinator few seemed excited about.
Mayo earned his firing. But it’s hard to look back on the way he got the job and think this wasn’t pretty much doomed from the start. When the Krafts made their deal to make Mayo head coach, at a time when they probably didn’t think they’d ever fire Belichick, let alone fire him so soon, they were choosing the system that was already in place, and that would be passed down from one coach to the next. But at the time Mayo actually became head coach, it was pretty clear that the system Belichick set up was struggling, if not failing. And still, the Krafts chose to extend it anyway. To keep most things in place, and swap the Hall of Fame coach at the top for someone with only a few years of coaching experience. When you look at it that way, no wonder it turned out like this.
It’s not clear whether the Patriots will clean house entirely—offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt was let go Sunday, too, but personnel leaders Eliot Wolf and Matt Groh remain for now—though the speed with which the Krafts made the decision to fire Mayo suggests a desire to compete for top candidates, who often prefer to bring a trusted GM or personnel leader instead of being paired with someone already in place. The potential to bring in a new GM, plus the presence of Maye, could actually make the Patriots job an attractive one—the issues with the rest of roster and historical shoes to fill aside. Mike Vrabel looms large here as a potential contender, and though he might feed some of the Krafts’ desire to connect their next coach with the past dynasty, Vrabel has had his coaching success outside of New England. In any case, it’s a big decision. It has taken a couple years to get around to it, but the Patriots finally aren’t just looking for a new coach. They’re getting a new system.
Nora Princiotti covers the NFL, culture, and pop music, sometimes all at once. She hosts the podcast ‘Every Single Album,’ appears on ‘The Ringer NFL Show,’ and is The Ringer’s resident Taylor Swift scholar.
