Patriots CBs address controversial firing of Jerod Mayo

While current members of the New England Patriots understandably are excited to have Mike Vrabel as their new head coach, multiple former Patriots players have publicly criticized team owner Robert Kraft for firing former coach Jerod Mayo after just one season.

During the latest edition of NBC Sports Boston's "The Next Pats Podcast," Patriots cornerbacks Jonathan Jones and Christian Gonzalez addressed Mayo losing his job after New England ended the 2024 campaign with a record of 4-13. 

"I just think it’s tough," Jones explained, as shared by Chris Mason of MassLive. "It’s a cutthroat business, but it’s a results business. The results that we put out there this season as a team, as a unit, it wasn’t good enough. Unfortunately, when you’re the leader, you’re the head coach, everything kinda always falls back on you. It was just a tough one."

Mayo couldn't help that the Patriots entered September with arguably the league's worst overall roster after the club traded star pass-rusher Matthew Judon to the Atlanta Falcons. With that said, Mayo also didn't do himself any favors by sticking his foot in his mouth multiple times throughout the season. 

Specifically, Mayo referred to his team as "soft" following its Week 7 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. After New England fell to the Miami Dolphins in Week 12, Mayo mentioned that "there’s nothing" he could do for his players "once those guys cross the white lines." 

In December, three-time Super Bowl champion and current NFL analyst Devin McCourty directly said he thought Mayo's "biggest blunder of the season" involved "trying to figure out and control [his] emotions and everything right after a game." However, Gonzalez suggested Mayo never lost the locker room regardless of comments the 38-year-old made shortly after defeats. 

"(The messaging) gets thrown onto Mayo, but I think that’s more so on the outside. There were a lot of people that don’t understand what he was saying," Gonzalez said during the podcast. "There’s a lot of things that he said that went viral for him being like — saying he can’t help us win on the field. I mean, he can’t. We’re on the field. We as players are on the field. So we understand what he’s saying. Nobody felt disrespected or like, 'Oh, why did he say that?' So I don’t think it’s nothing that he did. What the coaches did. It comes down to the players. We just didn’t finish games. We didn’t win the games we needed to win."

What's done is done, and it's now no secret that Kraft turned to Vrabel in part to improve the club's culture from where it was throughout much of this season. Only time will tell if Mayo will get another opportunity to prove himself as a head coach at the highest level.