Culture
Jerod Mayo firing was as much about his command off the field as the Patriots’ play on it
FOXBORO, Mass. — As far back as July, when Jerod Mayo arrived at the practice fields out behind Gillette Stadium for his first training camp as coach of the New England Patriots, many prognosticators saw a team that was at the starting point of a big-time rebuild. That the Patriots finished the season with a dismal 4-13 record shouldn’t be looked at as a big surprise.
Why, then, is Mayo out as coach after just one season? We can cherry-pick this or that coaching decision or non-decision, but it wasn’t just what happened on the field that suggested a not-ready-for-prime-time unsteadiness about Mayo. It was also what happened on the record. Almost from the beginning, Mayo’s various media appearances, from news conferences to his weekly morning-drive interview on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show,” ranged from contradictory and uncomfortable to one unfortunate instance that had a whiff of old-fashioned buck-passing.
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No one utterance from Mayo led to Patriots fans clamoring for a coaching change. He is, after all, a former Patriots linebacker who in his eight seasons in Foxboro was teammates with the likes of Tom Brady, Wes Welker, Randy Moss. Vince Wilfork, Tedy Bruschi, Rob Ninkovich and Devin McCourty. He also played with Mike Vrabel, the man who could soon be wooed to be Mayo’s replacement.
It’s safe to say Pats fans were rooting for Mayo. But as the verbal missteps continued, it became ever more obvious Mayo lacked the proper amount of training to be a head coach in the NFL.
Statement from Patriots Chairman and CEO Robert Kraft: https://t.co/2YgHtzzBHK pic.twitter.com/GMXGgd768x
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) January 5, 2025
Mayo struck the right notes when he was introduced as the replacement for the legendary Bill Belichick, as when he said, “For me, I’m not trying to be Bill,” and, “The more I think about the lessons that I’ve taken from Bill, hard work works.” He did raise some eyebrows when on several occasions he referred to Patriots owner Robert Kraft as “Young Thundercat” and “Thunder.” Mayo later explained he came up with the nicknames because he felt Kraft, who turned 83 in June, has a “young soul.”
No harm, no foul on that one. But later on, as the losses piled up and Mayo’s public statements became more heavily scrutinized, “Young Thundercat” and “Thunder” were re-examined from critics who believed Mayo had landed the coaching gig because he’d become especially chummy with Kraft over the years. Kraft himself has said he was inspired to view Mayo as a future NFL head coach during the time they spent together on a trip to Israel in 2019.
But it was after the introductory news conference, and after Mayo moved into the redecorated coach’s office at Gillette Stadium, that the media missteps began to pile up.
A sampling:
‘Ready to burn some cash’
Appearing on WEEI on Jan 22, a little more than a week after being named coach, Mayo indicated the Patriots wouldn’t be limiting their roster building to the NFL Draft. “We’re bringing in talent, one thousand percent,” he said. “Have a lot of cap space and cash. Ready to burn some cash.”
The Patriots had somewhere north of $60 million in cap space, but the new coach was soon walking back that comment. “You know, I kind of misspoke when I said ‘burn some cash,’ but I was excited when you see those numbers,” Mayo told Karen Guregian of MassLive. “But when you reflect on those numbers … you don’t have to spend all of it in one year.”
One week into free agency, with most of the top names off the board, “the Patriots roster doesn’t look or feel a whole lot different from the one that went 4-13 last season,” The Athletic’s Chad Graff wrote. They did bring in journeyman quarterback Jacoby Brissett on a one-year deal for about $8 million.
The mixed messaging at quarterback
Almost from the moment the Patriots selected quarterback Drake Maye with the third pick in the draft, Mayo said there would be a “competition” for the job between the rookie (Maye) and the veteran (Brissett). Nothing unusual there, as this is a default quote from coaches after a shiny new draft pick has had his introductory hug with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and been introduced to the media.
But things got complicated when Mayo made repeated references to Maye outperforming Brissett in the preseason, such as when the new coach went on WEEI and said, “This was, or is, a true competition. It wasn’t fluff or anything like that. It’s a true competition. And I would say at this current point, you know, Drake has outplayed Jacoby.”
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Which brings us to an Aug. 28 Mayo media availability that lasted just a few seconds north of a minute.
“We have decided — or I have decided — that Jacoby Brissett will be our starting quarterback this season,” Mayo said.
The competition was fluff after all.
Jerod Mayo is the latest coach to be given just one season in charge before being fired.https://t.co/LIr8PTbGY7 pic.twitter.com/VdDhmC0sa4
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) January 5, 2025
‘We’re a soft football team across the board’
So said Mayo to the media following the Patriots’ 32-16 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Oct. 20 in London. It was New England’s sixth straight loss following their season-opening 16-10 victory over Cincinnati.
Not only did Mayo say, “We’re a soft football team across the board,” he took the time to define what makes a team “tough.”
“What makes a tough football team?” Mayo asked. “Being able to run the ball and being able to stop the run and being able to cover kicks, and we did none of that today.”
This was followed by what was now being called Walkback Monday.
“We’re playing soft,” Mayo said during his weekly WEEI hit. “Look, let me just go ahead and correct that. We’re playing soft. Because if you go back to training camp, there was definitely some toughness all around the place. We still have the same players. We’ve just got to play that way.”
It worked for Belichick
There was much buzz over Mayo’s clock management late in the fourth quarter of the Patriots’ 25-24 loss to the Indianapolis Colts on Dec. 1 at Gillette Stadium. With the Colts moving the ball toward the end zone, Mayo did not burn any timeouts in order to keep alive his team’s last-ditch drive if needed.
The Colts, trailing 24-17, rallied for a 3-yard touchdown pass from Anthony Richardson to Alec Pierce, followed by Richardson’s run on the conversion try, giving Indy a 25-24 lead. Only 12 seconds remained in the game, which ended with Joey Slye’s failed 68-yard field goal attempt.
“Absolutely, there was a thought,” Mayo said afterward when asked if he considered using timeouts. “We have also won a Super Bowl here doing it the other way. Keeping our timeouts is what I thought was best for our team.”
Mayo was referring to the Patriots’ 28-24 victory over the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX, when Belichick allowed the clock to run down on Seattle’s last drive. It worked out for the Patriots, thanks to Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson’s head-scratching pass attempt to Ricardo Lockette on second-and-goal from the New England 1 that Malcolm Butler miraculously intercepted to secure New England’s victory.
The next morning on WEEI …
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Mayo said. “When I said it, I was frustrated, first of all, which I should have taken a deep breath. I should not have said that.”
Did anyone get the license number of that bus?
The Patriots’ 30-17 loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Dec. 15 was lowlighted by the team’s inability to gain a crucial first down on third-and-1 and fourth-and-1 from the Arizona 4-yard line. The Pats gave it a go on runs by Antonio Gibson and Rhamondre Stevenson, both of which went nowhere, leading to this obvious postgame question for Mayo: Why not have Maye, a big, mobile quarterback, go for a sneak?
“You said it, I didn’t,” Mayo replied, which was viewed far and wide as a criticism of offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt. Mayo then followed up with, “It’s always my decision, I would say, look, the quarterback obviously has a good pair of legs and does a good job running the ball. We just chose not to do it there.”
The next morning, on Walkback Monday, Mayo tidied up the comment during a conference call with the media.
“I know there’s a lot of chatter about the question last night, ‘You said that,’” Mayo said. “I didn’t mean anything by that. It was more of a defensive response and, ultimately, I tried to clarify that with the follow-up question. Because ultimately all of those decisions are mine. So just wanted to get that out there.”
Mayo then pivoted to his weekly WEEI hit, during which he said he “shouldn’t have done that. Just like I tell the players, I’m still learning how these things work.”
The benching that wasn’t
On Dec. 28, less than an hour before the Patriots would host the Los Angeles Chargers, Mayo went on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s pregame show and responded to Stevenson’s recent fumble issues by telling Scott Zolak, “Gibby is going to start for us today,” referring to Gibson.
The game began, and on New England’s first possession, it was Stevenson toting the ball for a gain of 5 yards.
Why the sudden change of heart?
“Coach’s decision,” Mayo said after the Patriots’ 40-7 loss to the Chargers.
LIVE: Patriots Postgame Press Conferences: https://t.co/kY9REgnEZn
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) January 5, 2025
The Patriots closed out their season on Sunday with a 23-16 victory against the playoff-bound Buffalo Bills in what may be the most sparsely attended game in the 23-year history of Gillette Stadium.
Mayo was asked 15 questions during his postgame media availability.
The last question: How would you best summarize this year, and did you learn maybe that the team is a little bit further away than you were anticipating?
“I’m not going to get into that,” Mayo said. “Like I said, tomorrow we’ll have a lot of time to talk about those things, but tonight, it’s all about these guys going out there and winning a football game.”
That’s one Mayo won’t need to walk back.
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(Photo: Billie Weiss / Getty Images)
On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.
Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”
With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”
How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.
By ‘A Lady’
Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)
Where the Magic Happened
Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.
An Iconic Accessory
Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.
Austen Onscreen
Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.
Jane Goes X-Rated
The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.
A Lady Unmasked
Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”
Wearable Tributes
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.
The Austen Literary Universe
On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)
A Botanical Homage
Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.
Aunt Jane
Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.
Cultural Currency
In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.
In the Trenches
During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”
Baby Janes
You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.
The Austen Industrial Complex
Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.
Around the Globe
Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.
Playable Persuasions
In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.
#SoJaneAusten
The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.
Bonnets Fit for a Bennett
For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.
Most Ardently, Jane
Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
Stage and Sensibility
Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.
Austen 101
Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”
W.W.J.D.
When facing problems — of etiquette, romance, domestic or professional turmoil — sometimes the only thing to do is ask: What would Jane do?
A famous poet once observed that it is difficult to get the news from poems. The weather is a different story. April showers, summer sunshine and — maybe especially — the chill of winter provide an endless supply of moods and metaphors. Poets like to practice a double meteorology, looking out at the water and up at the sky for evidence of interior conditions of feeling.
The inner and outer forecasts don’t always match up. This short poem by Louise Glück starts out cold and stays that way for most of its 11 lines.
And then it bursts into flame.
“Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” comes from Glück’s debut collection, “Firstborn,” which was published in 1968. She wrote the poems in it between the ages of 18 and 23, but they bear many of the hallmarks of her mature style, including an approach to personal matters — sex, love, illness, family life — that is at once uncompromising and elusive. She doesn’t flinch. She also doesn’t explain.
Here, for example, Glück assembles fragments of experience that imply — but also obscure — a larger narrative. It’s almost as if a short story, or even a novel, had been smashed like a glass Christmas ornament, leaving the reader to infer the sphere from the shards.
We know there was a couple with a flat tire, and that a year later at least one of them still has feelings for the other. It’s hard not to wonder if they’re still together, or where they were going with those Christmas presents.
To some extent, those questions can be addressed with the help of biographical clues. The version of “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” that appeared in The Atlantic in 1967 was dedicated to Charles Hertz, a Columbia University graduate student who was Glück’s first husband. They divorced a few years later. Glück, who died in 2023, was never shy about putting her life into her work.
But the poem we are reading now is not just the record of a passion that has long since cooled. More than 50 years after “Firstborn,” on the occasion of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Glück celebrated the “intimate, seductive, often furtive or clandestine” relations between poets and their readers. Recalling her childhood discovery of William Blake and Emily Dickinson, she declared her lifelong ardor for “poems to which the listener or reader makes an essential contribution, as recipient of a confidence or an outcry, sometimes as co-conspirator.”
That’s the kind of poem she wrote.
“Confidence” can have two meanings, both of which apply to “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson.” Reading it, you are privy to a secret, something meant for your ears only. You are also in the presence of an assertive, self-possessed voice.
Where there is power, there’s also risk. To give voice to desire — to whisper or cry “I want you” — is to issue a challenge and admit vulnerability. It’s a declaration of conquest and a promise of surrender.
What happens next? That’s up to you.
Cold weather can serve as a plot point or emphasize the mood of a scene, and this week’s literary geography quiz highlights the locations of recent novels that work winter conditions right into the story. Even if you aren’t familiar with the book, the questions offer an additional hint about the setting. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
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