Robert Kraft is putting Jerod Mayo’s failed Patriots tenure on himself.
In the hours following Jerod Mayo’s firing after just one year on the job, Kraft addressed the swift coaching change on Monday, calling the move “one of the more difficult things I’ve had to do in my life.”
“This whole situation is on me,” Kraft, 83, said in his opening remarks to the media. “I feel terrible for Jerod because I put him in an untenable situation. I know that he has all the tools as a head coach to be successful in this league, he just needed more time before taking the job. In the end, I’m a fan of this team first, and now, I have to go out and find a coach who can get us back to the playoffs and hopefully championships.”
Mayo, named Bill Belichick’s successor a year ago, was fired on Sunday after the Patriots’ 23-16 win over the Bills in the regular-season finale.
The former Patriots linebacker, 38, posted a 4-13 record as head coach.
Kraft added Monday he “went back and forth” on the situation over the past month.
“I guess the main thing for me is I felt we regressed,” said Kraft, whose Patriots rode a six-game losing skid entering Sunday.
“… I don’t like losing the way we lost,” he later added. “Things were not developing the way we would have liked and it was time to move on.”
Upon telling Mayo the team wanted to go in a different direction, Kraft said he “was a gentleman and accepted it that way.”
“It was one of the more difficult things I’ve had to do in my life cause I had such affection for him, and I believe in him, and I really do believe he will go on as he gets more experience to be successful,” Kraft shared.
Mayo played for the Patriots from 2008 to 2015. He began his coaching career in New England four years later, serving as the inside linebackers coach from 2019 to 2023 before being elevated to the top job.
The Patriots are one of the five current head coaching vacancies.
The Jets, Bears and Saints dismissed their coaches midseason while the Jaguars fired Doug Pederson on Monday morning after three years.
New England is one of the more intriguing openings with a promising young quarterback in Drake Maye, roughly $131 million in cap space entering free agency and the fourth overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
