As rookie quarterback Joe Milton III took the final kneel down of the game, a certain unsettling silence filled Gillette Stadium. Not only had the New England Patriots squandered their chances of obtaining the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft – and presumably lost the sweepstakes for two-way dynamo Travis Hunter – but the future would soon turn sour for head coach Jerod Mayo.
Going into Sunday, following a Week 17 blowout loss at home to the Los Angeles Chargers, all the Patriots needed to do was lose to control their destiny in April’s draft with a 3-14 final record. This would give the Patriots the ultimate opportunity to draft a weapon – 2024 Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter out of Colorado — for soon-to-be second-year quarterback Drake Maye.
“Obviously there’s frustration there,” said Scituate High School senior Benjamin Caristi. “But when you put yourself in the players’ shoes, you know they’re going out there every week trying to win, so they’re putting their bodies on the line.”
However, New England still has a very real opportunity to draft the star cornerback/wide receiver. The three teams ahead of the Patriots are, in order, the Tennessee Titans, New York Giants, and Las Vegas Raiders. These three franchises are all notably in desperate need of a new quarterback. But all of this could have been prevented by simply losing the Week 18 game against the Buffalo Bills. This brings up the coaching question with Mayo – a former Patriots linebacker himself – and how this game affected his job status.
“He’s figuring it out, and I think our players, we’re behind him,” Maye told the press. “We’re backing him. We trust the plan he’s got for us, and we trust what he says in the team meeting rooms and all those little sayings that he has. We believe in it, and we’re bought into it. I just think the results are coming.”
The signal caller’s support of the coach did not matter to owner Robert Kraft, as he decided to relieve Mayo of his duties less than an hour after the win against Buffalo. Kraft did express remorse for the decision, and stated that he put Mayo in an “untenable situation” during a press conference held the following Monday. Mayo became very polarizing among the Patriots fan base over the course of the season, and an abhorrent 4-13 finish that most New England fans aren’t accustomed to was the main culprit.
“Really a surprise to me,” said Scituate High School senior Oscar Grimshaw, who witnessed the Patriots’ win over the Bills on Sunday. “I’m not a huge Jerod Mayo fan, but I know you shouldn’t fire a coach right away. I think he would have been more beneficial as years progressed and had more time to build a relationship with the Krafts and the team.”
Dan Campbell, head coach of the Detroit Lions and one of the most successful up-and-coming coaches in the NFL right now, notoriously went 3-13-1 in his first year at the helm. This brings up the question of patience within the front office and whether the firing of a coach after one season is premature. Mayo had a prominent young quarterback in Maye and the No. 4 overall pick in this year’s draft, yet Kraft and the rest of the ownership group decided the time was now to move on. In a league that stops for no one, The Kraft Group now has to act swiftly to find the next head coach in New England.
“I saw Ben Johnson. I saw Mike Vrabel. I mean, I think if they can get a real qualified guy back in here to kind of guide Drake Maye and get a good offensive coordinator…that’ll be good for the squad,” Caristi remarked.
Vrabel, a former Patriots linebacker and Titans head coach from 2018 to 2023, has been highly speculated as the frontrunner for the position. Johnson, current offensive coordinator for the thriving Lions, is another candidate being sought out by NFL teams with head coach vacancies. With a boatload of issues to resolve in Foxborough, fans can only hope The Kraft Group can work their magic once again and revive a franchise that, at least at this moment, feels dead.