Whereas current members of the New England Patriots understandably are excited to have Mike Vrabel as their new head coach, multiple former Patriots gamers have publicly criticized staff proprietor Robert Kraft for firing former coach Jerod Mayo after only one season.
Through the newest version of NBC Sports activities Boston’s “The Subsequent Pats Podcast,” Patriots cornerbacks Jonathan Jones and Christian Gonzalez addressed Mayo dropping his job after New England ended the 2024 marketing campaign with a file of 4-13.
“I simply suppose it’s robust,” Jones defined, as shared by Chris Mason of MassLive. “It’s a cutthroat enterprise, however it’s a outcomes enterprise. The outcomes that we put on the market this season as a staff, as a unit, it wasn’t adequate. Sadly, once you’re the chief, you’re the top coach, every little thing kinda at all times falls again on you. It was only a robust one.”
Mayo could not assist that the Patriots entered September with arguably the league’s worst total roster after the membership traded star pass-rusher Matthew Judon to the Atlanta Falcons. With that stated, Mayo additionally did not do himself any favors by sticking his foot in his mouth a number of occasions all through the season.
Particularly, Mayo referred to his staff as “soft” following its Week 7 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. After New England fell to the Miami Dolphins in Week 12, Mayo mentioned that “there’s nothing” he might do for his gamers “as soon as these guys cross the white strains.”
In December, three-time Tremendous Bowl champion and present NFL analyst Devin McCourty directly said he thought Mayo’s “largest blunder of the season” concerned “attempting to determine and management [his] feelings and every little thing proper after a recreation.” Nevertheless, Gonzalez instructed Mayo by no means misplaced the locker room no matter feedback the 38-year-old made shortly after defeats.
“(The messaging) will get thrown onto Mayo, however I feel that’s extra so on the skin. There have been lots of people that don’t perceive what he was saying,” Gonzalez stated in the course of the podcast. “There’s quite a lot of issues that he stated that went viral for him being like — saying he can’t assist us win on the sector. I imply, he can’t. We’re on the sector. We as gamers are on the sector. So we perceive what he’s saying. No one felt disrespected or like, ‘Oh, why did he say that?’ So I don’t suppose it’s nothing that he did. What the coaches did. It comes all the way down to the gamers. We simply didn’t end video games. We didn’t win the video games we would have liked to win.”
What’s accomplished is finished, and it is now no secret that Kraft turned to Vrabel partially to enhance the club’s culture from the place it was all through a lot of this season. Solely time will inform if Mayo will get one other alternative to show himself as a head coach on the highest stage.
