What Bill Belichick said about Patriots’ decision to fire Jerod Mayo

Patriots

“When you switch coordinators and switch coaches all the time, it makes it tough.”

By Conor Ryan

January 6, 2025 | 2:47 PM

2 minutes to read

The Patriots’ decision to fire Jerod Mayo just over an hour after the 2024 regular season wrapped has led to several strong reactions from former Patriots players — many of whom believe that the first-year head coach was put in a bad spot by Robert Kraft and Eliot Wolf. 

Granted, if there was anyone who might relish the dysfunction these days in Foxborough, it’s former head coach Bill Belichick.

Whether it be Jerod Mayo being tabbed as his successor while Belichick was still under contract or Kraft’s decision to fire Belichick immediately blowing up in his face, Belichick had several reasons to take a victory lap during his weekly appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Monday. 

But rather than dance on the grave of a dismal 2024 season in New England, Belichick opted to brush aside any pointed criticism toward New England’s decision to move on from Mayo after just one year on the job. 

“The Patriot situation — I mean, honestly, I don’t have too much of a comment on that,” Belichick said. “You know — Robert Kraft, Jonathan Kraft, Robyn Glaser, they’re the decision-makers there, who exactly does what, and so forth. Mayo was hand-picked by Robert. 

“But in the end, the decision-making is something that they’d have to comment on and identify. They’re the ones that are really making the calls there. So they’re the ones that should comment on that, I really don’t know, from the outside looking. They haven’t called me and asked, so I don’t know.”

While Belichick didn’t exactly land a shot at the Patriots’ top brass, McAfee did the honors shortly after Belichick’s comments. 

“We thought maybe that would happen after the way this year has gone,” McAfee responded. “There might be a chance that they go, ‘Wow, maybe winning for a long time isn’t as easy as one guy who’s coaching in college now made it look for a while.’ Hopefully, there’s a chance for that conversation to happen.”

While Belichick didn’t outright call out the Patriots’ handling of their coaching situation over the last few years, he did throw some shade when asked about how important it is for an NFL team’s coaching staff and front office to be on the same page as the ownership group. 

“I think the more important relationship is … to have a shared vision with ownership between the head coach and the general manager in terms of what the organization is really trying to do and how they’re doing it,” Belichick said, referencing teams like the Steelers, Chiefs, and Eagles. 

Belichick then made a point about how teams who often switch coaches and coordinators every few years struggle to find that same level of consistency and are unable to maintain whatever vision or identity they are charting, year over year.

“So you see situations like that, and when everybody’s aligned and pulling together, you might not win the championship every year, which we didn’t,” Belichick added. “But you’re in it every year, and you have a strong team, and you can continue to build. . …. And when you switch coordinators and switch coaches all the time, it makes it tough. … It’s just hard to build any continuity when you do it that way.

“So to me, if you have this shared vision all the way through the organization, which we had for 20 years in New England, then you have a chance to be competitive and be successful.”

 

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.