Robert Kraft and the New England Patriots wasted little time making their decision on Jerod Mayo after Sunday's season finale vs. the Buffalo Bills.
Shortly after Mayo addressed his uncertain future at the podium, Kraft announced in a statement that the first-year head coach was relieved of his duties. Although Mayo's job was given the benefit of the doubt earlier in the tumultuous campaign, his blunders over the last few weeks forced Kraft's hand.
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Former Pats linebacker Ted Johnson praised Robert and Jonathan Kraft for their decision during Sunday's Patriots Postgame Live.
"You don't fire Jerod Mayo this soon if you don't already have a good idea of kind of a direction of where you want to go," Johnson said. "So buckle up, Patriots fans. It's gonna be an exciting offseason for sure. But I give the Krafts a lot of credit, because I think this was the right decision. I knew it wasn't gonna be an easy decision and a lot of us in the media that know Jerod, we all like Jerod, but I just felt like if you just brought him back it was gonna be really just very difficult for the fanbase I think to kind of receive that and deal with that.
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"It was gonna be a very long offseason if you did bring Jerod Mayo back. Now that he's been fired, I give the Krafts a lot of credit because it's gonna be, my guess is, a very thorough interviewing process. You're gonna have to spend a lot of money. It's gonna take a lot of time, and my guess is they were hoping to avoid that, but they concluded probably after last week's game -- because I think that was the tipping point -- that they needed to move on and that was the best thing for the organization, so I give them a lot of credit. Couldn't have been an easy decision, but in my opinion, it was the right decision."
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With Mayo out of the picture, the Krafts must act swiftly in finding their next locker room leader. The most popular name attached to the Patriots' vacancy is former Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel, who played for New England from 2001-08.
"The availability of Mike Vrabel, to me, is a part of this story. This looms large," NBC Sports Boston's Patriots insider Phil Perry said.
"This would represent an option that they like to move on to after parting ways with Jerod Mayo, and I think the overall approach, to me, is that we have to figure out how we're going to fix this and fix it fast, and they make the move faster than I think a lot of people were anticipating."
As Johnson noted, it's going to be an eventful offseason in Foxboro. Significant changes are expected to be made to the roster along with the coaching staff, and while vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf remains with the organization, there could be some noteworthy tweaks made to the front office over the next few months.
The Patriots finished their 2024 season with a 4-13 record after beating the Bills, 23-16. The victory dropped them from the No. 1 overall pick to No. 4 in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Check out our Postgame Live crew's full reaction to Mayo's firing in the video below or on YouTube:
