Let the offseason countdown commence!
With the [NFL Combine](https://www.sbnation.com/nfl-combine) in the books and Free Agency still a few days away, this week marks the perfect time to kick off my list of the 10 Best Patriots Moments of 2024. I know it wasn’t particularly a season to remember, but there were some absolute gems in there, and I’m going to be spending the next few months putting them all in one place.
I figured I’d kick the list off in style and maybe generate a little controversy as we dive in.
**10\. Jerod Mayo out, Mike Vrabel in.**
When the Patriots announced that they were moving on from Bill Belichick and Jerod Mayo would be taking over as head coach, there were a lot of mixed feelings and no shortage of opinions on the matter. Some folks couldn’t believe that Kraft let Belichick walk, while others thought the move was long overdue. It represented either the final breaking point of a tumultuous relationship or a mutual decision between two men who respected each other and understood it was time to head in a different direction.
But all those opinions didn’t matter, because mere days after the announcement that New England was moving on from Bill Belichick, Robert Kraft found his guy in former stud and linebackers coach Jerod Mayo.
Patriots Nation was, for the most part, excited for the Jerod Mayo era. There was some concern surrounding the fact that he had never called a single play as a coordinator, as that’s usually where a first-time HC finds himself the season before, but there was no doubt that Mayo was a huge football guy, had a strong nose for the ins and outs, and the players loved him. So we all jumped on board and threw our full support behind New England’s first new head coach since 2000.
Things started out great for Mayo; the Patriots went into Cincinnati and upset a Bengals team that a lot of experts had representing the AFC in the 2024 [Super Bowl](https://www.sbnation.com/super-bowl). However, that Bengals game would more or less represent the highlight of Mayo’s Patriots coaching career, as things quickly took a turn for the worse.
It wasn’t so much the losses, which were more or less expected last year (very few people predicted more than five wins for the 2024 Patriots). It was the way the team looked week in and week out. The lack of consistency or improvement. The way the defense, a real strength of the 2023 team, took such massive strides backward. And as we listened to Mayo give press conferences, make statements and then backtrack on them, and present more than a few head-scratching quotes, we couldn’t help but wonder if he was in a bit over his head. After an October full of defeats, including a few extremely embarrassing ones to Miami and Jacksonville where the Patriots looked completely lost, the first rumblings for Mayo’s firing began to surface. It for sure seemed a bit reactionary to call for a coach’s job six games into his very first season, but it was tough to ignore that something about this team just seemed a bit...off.
To say that things didn’t get any better for the Patriots would be an insult to things that never got better, as they limped to a 4-13 finish that saw them win a completely meaningless Week 18 game that knocked them from the first overall pick in the 2025 Draft all the way down to fourth. Drake Maye seemed like a stud, and Christian Gonzalez was clearly one of the best corners in the league, but beyond those two there was absolutely nothing to suggest that the Patriots had made any positive strides at any level. Mayo’s first year as a head coach, to put it bluntly, had been a complete disaster.
Again, it wasn’t the losses. If the Patriots had hung tough, improved every week, almost pulled a few out, and made some real strides on their way to a 4-13 season, we all would have been perfectly happy with how things shook out in 2024. But none of that happened. The team looked completely rudderless, and the decision-making was questionable at best. And as the season ended and we all looked ahead to 2025 and beyond, even the most staunch Jerod Mayo supporters who had been saying how much he deserved at least one more season - including yours truly - couldn’t ignore the truth. He had to go.
Under different circumstances, I would have died on my original hill and been completely fine with Mayo getting another season to try and prove himself. I’m also willing to acknowledge that he walked into a very difficult situation, and it isn’t at all fair to oust him after one bad season with one of the worst rosters in the league. It takes time to establish a culture and build a team, and every new job comes with growing pains and requires learning on the fly. And it would be foolish to say that the dumpster fire that was the 2024 season was all Jerod Mayo’s fault—it 100% wasn’t. But he does deserve a chunk of the blame for how it shook out, and he clearly just wasn’t ready.
Also, the stark reality is that there is no worse place to be as a franchise than to find yourself with a high draft pick, a ton of cap space, and a coach on the hot seat. Coaches signing guys to save their jobs isn’t the recipe for success, and this upcoming offseason is far too important to leave up to a front office on shaky ground. It would have been a horrible business decision to keep Mayo around under the current circumstances. Up against the cap and picking at 13? Sure, let’s give him one more shot. But fourth overall, a potential franchise QB, and the most cap space in the league?
Enter Mike Vrabel.
Bob Kraft, openly admitting his mistake, fired Jerod Mayo mere hours after that awful, awful Bills win. Exactly one week later, he announced that another former linebacking great, Mike Vrabel, would be the coach of the team for 2025 and (hopefully) beyond. There were a few rumblings about Vikings OC Ben Johnson, arguably the hottest coaching candidate in the league, coming to New England, but ultimately Kraft went with a former player and proven commodity in Vrabel.
Will things work out better with Mike Vrabel at the helm? It would be tough for them to get any worse, I can say that much. And thus far, there’s already a better sense of control, command, and understanding at the beginning of Vrabel’s tenure than there ever was during Mayo’s.
Part of me feels bad putting this move on this list of top moments; I loved Mayo as a player, and I think he has the potential to be a great coach in the NFL. What happened to him wasn’t all on him in anty way, and honestly he was probably thrust into the role before he was ready. Jerod Mayo may very well have been doomed from the start. But another part of me can’t wait to see what Mike Vrabel does with Drake Maye, all this money, and the Number Four overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. There’s a sense of optimism around this season that likely wouldn’t be there if it was still Mayo’s show. And because of that, the kind-of-crappy-but-much-needed decision to fire Mayo and hire Vrabel kicks off this list at Number 10.