FOXBORO — Eleven and a half months after he was introduced as the head coach of the Patriots, the chief reason to believe in Jerod Mayo remains unchanged.
It’s nothing you can see, nor hear, nor point to as proof.
It’s an idea, an extension of the imagination. Something abstract.
Potential.
Or, in the words of the pessimist: pure, unfounded faith.
Because most of what we’ve seen and heard from Mayo since he was hired paints an increasingly disturbing reality for the NFL’s once premier franchise.
The Patriots are a laughing stock. An embarrassment. A doormat the Chargers, of all franchises, just wiped their feet on before waltzing into the playoffs without having to play their starters through to the end.
Meanwhile, these Patriots are penalty prone. Selfish. Unaccountable. And now, most damning of all, they’re quitters.
“Just to speak for myself, I’ve seen a lot of stuff out there. It feels like a lot of guys start giving up when things get hard,” defensive tackle Daniel Ekuale told me after Saturday’s 40-7 loss.
Shaking his head, Ekuale continued: “I feel like towards the end of the fourth quarter, some of the guys just give up, and some guys play to the end of the whistle. I don’t know, man. It’s been a tough year, ups and downs.”
Saturday was all downs, an avalanche leading into next weekend’s season finale and an uncertain future beyond that who-cares affair with the Bills. All of the reporting surrounding Mayo’s future has indicated he will return for 2025, provided he avoids a “collapse” or “calamity” down the stretch. Did Saturday’s loss, by far the Patriots’ worst of the season, qualify as either?
I don’t know.
What I do know is I have seen enough to pass on potential, and pick up the phone for Mike Vrabel.
If Vrabel is, indeed, interested in returning to New England, the Krafts ought to bring him home. Say what you will about Vrabel’s Titans – a hard-nosed, boring bunch often hamstrung by bad quarterbacks – they never quit. They didn’t break fundamentally.
Instead, they knocked out the dynasty-era Pats in January 2020, Tom Brady’s last game as a Patriot, and made the AFC Championship Game that same year. Two seasons after that, they clinched the No. 1 seed in the AFC, and Vrabel was named Coach of the Year. During his Tennessee tenure, Vrabel was widely regarded as a top-10 NFL coach and compiled a winning record.
Whatever Mayo might become, he’s light-years away from that, and eight seasons behind Vrabel in coaching experience. All of the years Vrabel has spent outside New England since being traded as a player in 2009 have served him in a way Mayo can never know until he leaves himself; building a network, learning other systems, coaching techniques and philosophies.
Vrabel is not a Patriot anymore, and that fact, along with his track record of hiring strong offensive coordinators, makes him the perfect candidate for what Mayo was hired to do in the first place: reboot and modernize the franchise. Because under Mayo, the Patriots coaches are stuck on a hamster wheel of failure; unable to complete the four basic tasks of their profession: motivate, organize, teach and develop.
This staff is not reaching its best players.
“I’ve never been in this position; as disconnected or not on the same page as I am right now,” Pats defensive lineman Keion White told me. “Like, I know I can play good football. I have the ability to. I’m just not right now, and (I’m) trying to figure it out what it is.”
This staff has not developed anyone outside of Drake Maye.
Fellow rookie Javon Baker still has fewer career catches than Vederian Lowe, the team’s left tackle, and Ja’Lynn Polk’s caught two passes since Halloween.
This staff can’t force opponents to “play left-handed.”
The pick that should have been Polk, Ladd McConkey, the Chargers’ leading receiver by more than 400 receiving yards, scored two touchdowns Saturday. Two!
And the staff is not inspiring players in a way that suggests the Patriots will be able to next season.
“Just need to compete better, fight a little more,” Pats receiver Kendrick Bourne admitted. “Just embarrassing.”
Never mind Mayo’s ongoing parade of media mistakes, which continued Saturday when Rhamondre Stevenson started the game after he told the national television and local radio broadcasts the butterfingered Stevenson would sit.
Or that veteran players continue to reflect Mayo’s don’t-mind-the-defense attitude after a 33-point beatdown when they allowed 150 rushing yards.
“I thought we were playing good run D – just particularly talking about defense – I thought we were playing good run defense,” Pats nose tackle Davon Godchaux said. “You know, I think (Jim) Harbaugh made a statement and said they were going to come in and play bully ball. Particularly when you say that, they typically want to run the ball, stop the run, play your special teams. I thought for the most part, we played good run defense.”
Man. Seriously?
What matters is the Patriots have one game left against the Bills, who are likely to rest their starters ahead of the playoffs. Several Pats players happily noted Buffalo’s expected lineup decision Saturday’s post-game locker room, perhaps the saddest possibly commentary on the state of the franchise.
That the Patriots, six-time Super Bowl champions, might win because of whom the Bills choose to sit, not because of who they are as a team.
If ownership opts to fire Mayo’s coordinators the following week, the Krafts will face an impossible task of hiring quality coaches willing to work a second-year headman on the hot seat with minimal experience. If they run it back with Mayo, Alex Van Pelt and DeMarcus Covington, ownership will send a message that losing like this can be tolerated; that they again are betting on potential, while the on-field results and locker-room commentary scream otherwise.
The thing is, I’m done with potential.
The sure thing is out there.
His name is Mike Vrabel, and if he’s willing and able to return, that’s all the Krafts need to know.
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