Jerod Mayo isn’t ready, but little of this disaster is his fault
The Patriots are now 3-8, and Mayo's unfit coaching qualities have suddenly become prime target for the ire of fans.
COMMENTARY
Back when the New England Patriots had their absurd “mutual parting of ways” with longtime head coach Bill Belichick, it seemed like the franchise was ready to inject some vibrancy into a team that had taken on an aura of incompetency since Tom Brady walked away. Yes, they would have to follow NFL hiring procedures like the Rooney Rule, but since the dopes in Tennessee had already fired Mike Vrabel, the next step seemed obvious, if not hand-fed, for the Kraft family to follow.
That was, of course, before we learned about Jerod Mayo and Patriots owner Bob Kraft’s under-the-table agreement made some five years ago, one that would name Mayo the successor to Belichick, whenever he decided to hang up the hoodie. Essentially, Kraft turned the stringent NFL hiring process into giving the most important job you have to that new best friend you just met on a cruise to Cozumel. And the Steelers think they have the most storied coaching lineage in the league.
Just like there was no plan post-Brady, the Krafts showed they didn’t listen to the criticism and followed through with no plan post-Belichick as well. How many other franchises would cheap out to this degree for a rookie head coach and a hastily put-together staff? Now, the Patriots are 3-8 and Mayo’s unfit coaching qualities have suddenly become prime target for the ire of Patriot fans. Who would have guessed?
But those who are calling for his firing, 11 games into Mayo’s head coaching career, are part of the problem. In an NFL landscape where coaches are regularly fired after one failed campaign on the job, the calls for the coach’s head aren’t surprising. But to fire Mayo after giving him an offensive mind from Cleveland, the very same offensive line that helped ruin Mac Jones, and a second-round receiver who can’t catch the ball, would be akin to firing a chef who couldn’t create a meal for four with just the rotten meat and powdered milk you have in the kitchen.
Mayo isn’t going anywhere for a variety of reasons, the best of which is establishing some consistency and the rest of the high draft picks that will define this era, for better or worse. Despite the knee-jerk decisions made on the coaching carousel elsewhere, it would be wildly unfair to judge the coach’s worth after one season where Jacoby Brissett got playing time. The players, at least the ones who haven’t quit yet, seem to respect him and even responded positively to Mayo calling them “soft” earlier this season.
Mayo was criticized for that as well. We just thought he was being kind. He could say a lot worse about his team and have it be accurate.
Sunday’s 35-14 loss in Miami was not a good look for the coaching staff in general as the Patriots committed 10 penalties, an undisciplined whopper of a number that leads back to coaching.
“Once those guys cross the white lines there’s nothing I can do for them,” Mayo said Sunday. “There’s nothing any coach can do for them once they cross the white line. It’s my job to continue to prepare not only them but our coaches to go out here and play better football.”
Of course, Mayo was criticized for saying that, as well.
It isn’t so much that Mayo is wrong for the job as much as it is that he’s not ready for the job. Heck, in one of his biggest decisions early-on, he succumbed to his offensive coordinator from Cleveland’s desires to play Brissett over No. 3 draft pick Maye due to the comfort level the pair had. In Cleveland. In fairness, Mayo probably should have been fired after that.
Only a slice of this failure of a season can be directly attributed to Mayo, but there’s also the cases of people whom the Patriots let fly the coop. New England’s defense, once considered the saving grace of this sinking ship, had Mayo’s fingerprints all over it before it all fell apart this season. Or, so we were told they were his. Dare we say it, but maybe Steve Belichick was the better pick.
I’m sure the Krafts are very proud of the six Super Bowl trophies sitting in the front office of One Patriot Place, but probably not as much as they are about how much they paid for those titles. They did, after all dupe the best quarterback of all time to play for less than market value, “for the good of the team,” and everybody else just fell in line. By time Brady woke up, he was winning another one in Tampa. Belichick took the blame for that, too.
Mayo will get another year, if not more, if only because Robert isn’t going to admit he was wrong to hire a man with zero head coaching experience just because he got along with him on a bus in Israel. Even Jeff Saturday had to roll his eyes.
Mayo is learning on the fly and he deserves that leash though. He doesn’t deserve another year without significant resources being spent in the draft and free agency. Now that the Patriots have the quarterback, they have to try and avoid Matt Staffording the kid for the first half of his career.
Pairing him with this overwhelmed coaching staff wasn’t a great first step. But hey, for all we know, Robert has three other cocktail napkins acting as more backstabbing contracts to be the next head coach of the Patriots. So while candidates the likes of Vrabel and Ben Johnson will be in the head coaching spotlight this offseason, the Patriots will have to figure out how to clean house without laying blame at Mayo. Because if they fire Mayo after one season, they will have to look into the mirror to understand the failure.
I’m not sure Robert knows what a mirror is.
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