Culture
Patriots fire Jerod Mayo, expected to pursue Mike Vrabel as next head coach
FOXBORO, Mass. — The New England Patriots are making a change at head coach, splitting with Jerod Mayo just one year after he replaced Bill Belichick. Now, a franchise that once exuded stability and success like no other in the NFL is about to have its third coach in just three seasons.
New England fired Mayo less than 90 minutes after the season ended Sunday, a disastrous 4-13 campaign (and a Week 18 win that cost the team the No. 1 pick in the draft) in which Mayo routinely seemed to be in over his head in everything from game planning to his remarks to the media. While Mayo was given one of the worst rosters in the NFL, one overseen by executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf, the early indications are that Wolf will remain with the Patriots, according to a team source.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft called the decision to fire Mayo “one of the hardest decisions I have ever made.”
“Unfortunately, the trajectory of our team’s performances throughout the season did not ascend as I had hoped,” he said in a statement.
Statement from Patriots Chairman and CEO Robert Kraft: https://t.co/2YgHtzzBHK pic.twitter.com/GMXGgd768x
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) January 5, 2025
It’s a shocking fall from 12 months ago when it was revealed that Mayo, then 37, was Kraft’s hand-picked replacement for Belichick after 24 years at the helm. Kraft had quietly put the succession plan in writing, meaning the Patriots didn’t have to interview a single candidate before handing Mayo the reins.
This time, that won’t be the case. The Patriots are expected to begin their search for a new head coach immediately, and, according to league sources, the early signs point to one person. Kraft and company are expected to pursue Mike Vrabel, the 49-year-old former Patriots linebacker who shined for Belichick from 2001 to 2008 during the team’s first dynasty, though the franchise must conduct additional interviews for the job in compliance with the league’s Rooney Rule.
Vrabel was the head coach of the Tennessee Titans for six years, leading them to two division titles and an AFC Championship Game appearance while amassing a 54-45 record. But last year, the trust in Vrabel began to erode when team brass watched Vrabel spend his bye weekend in Foxboro being inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame while soaking up all things New England. During his on-field speech at halftime, Vrabel, still the Titans head coach, even said, “We’ve got a game to win,” in reference to the Patriots. Less than three months later, Vrabel was fired and didn’t land another head-coaching job.
“There’s got to be clear communication with ownership so that we understand as coaches what the expectations are,” Vrabel told The Athletic’s Zack Rosenblatt about what he’s looking for in his next job. “And I would like to be able to say that there’s a quarterback that you feel like you can win with — or that there’s a path to find the one that you can win with.”
For Vrabel, the Patriots likely check both of those boxes. Sources close to the situation believe Vrabel has shown interest in the Patriots’ potential vacancy in recent weeks. He also was interested in the Patriots gig a year ago after their split with Belichick before learning that Mayo had already been earmarked for the job.
At that point, the Patriots thought Mayo would be their coach for the next decade. Kraft and his fellow decision-makers saw Mayo as the right person to follow Belichick because he was a bridge to the franchise’s past success while offering a new path forward.
In the news conference announcing Mayo’s hiring last January, Kraft said he knew in 2019 that Mayo would be the next coach of the Patriots.
“I trust that Jerod is the right person to lead the Patriots back to championship-level contention and long-term success,” Kraft said at the time.
Instead, Mayo oversaw one of the Patriots’ worst seasons since Kraft purchased the team in 1994.
Mayo’s tenure started on a winning note with a surprise upset of the Cincinnati Bengals. Following four straight losses, Mayo turned to Drake Maye, the No. 3 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, as his starting quarterback, and benched veteran Jacoby Brissett. In the middle weeks of the season, the Patriots pulled out a last-second win over their archrival, the New York Jets, and a victory over the Chicago Bears. Things were looking up.
Kraft and the Patriots knew this season wouldn’t bring a lot of wins. It was the first year of a post-Belichick rebuild. The roster was bad. But they hoped Mayo would establish a culture that led to excitement and improvement by the end of the season.
Instead, the Patriots became a punching bag. After a Week 14 bye, they were blown out by the Arizona Cardinals, blew a 14-point lead to the Buffalo Bills and lost 40-7 at home to the Los Angeles Chargers. A loss on Sunday to the Bills would have clinched the No. 1 pick in the 2025 draft, but rookie backup quarterback Joe Milton led the Pats to a surprising 23-16 win.
GO DEEPER
Jerod Mayo firing was as much about his command off the field as the Patriots’ play on it
In fairness to Mayo, many of the Patriots’ problems preceded him. The franchise is 10-31 in its last 41 games. The Pats haven’t scored 30 or more points in 45 straight games. They are 11-22 at home in the last four seasons. (Tom Brady lost fewer games at Gillette Stadium in his entire Patriots career, going 115-19 at home.) They’ve finished with a sub-.300 winning percentage in back-to-back years, something they hadn’t done since they were the AFL’s Boston Patriots in 1969 and 1970.
But there was no sense by the end of the season that Mayo had the team on track to fix its problems. No position on the roster besides quarterback improved under his tutelage. And while that is a notable exception, Maye’s success as a rookie also ups the importance of ensuring Year 2 is in the right hands.
“We have tremendous fans who expect and deserve a better product than we have delivered in recent years,” Kraft said Sunday. “I apologize for that. I have given much thought and consideration as to what actions I can take to expedite our return to championship contention and determined this move was the best option at this time.”
Mayo becomes the sixth one-and-done NFL coach in the last four seasons and the first one-and-done Patriots coach since Rod Rust went 1-15 with the team in 1990.
All of it proved to be too much too soon for Mayo. The original plan, as dreamt up by Kraft, would’ve been for Belichick to remain the Patriots head coach in 2024, break Don Shula’s all-time wins record and mentor Mayo. But after the succession plan was put into writing, the relationship between Belichick and Mayo deteriorated and Belichick, who was already insular in his approach, withdrew even further. The idea of having Belichick mentor Mayo quickly went by the wayside.
At that point, Kraft decided to split with Belichick and hand the reins to Mayo — even though it was a year earlier than planned and he hadn’t received the mentorship he originally planned on. Sure, Mayo would struggle early on. But the hope was he’d learn on the job and grow throughout the course of the year.
That didn’t happen. In a lot of ways, Mayo tried to be what Belichick wasn’t. As a former player, he tried to be a player-friendly coach, then blasted the whole team as “soft” after a Week 7 loss. He tried to be more affable than his mentor while speaking to the media, then had to walk back several remarks. He said the team would “burn some cash” in free agency, then reversed course a couple of days later and the Patriots didn’t sign any marquee free agents.
After a Week 15 loss, he was asked if offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt should’ve called a quarterback sneak on an important short-yardage play and replied, “You said it, I didn’t.” The next day, he walked back those comments as “a defensive response.” Before a Week 17 loss, he told the radio and TV broadcast crews that Rhamondre Stevenson wouldn’t start the game to send him a message about his recent fumbles. Then Stevenson started the game.
GO DEEPER
Mike Vrabel, Brian Flores and the top candidates to be the Patriots’ next head coach
More importantly, the on-field product regressed in embarrassing fashion. As a former linebacker who learned under Belichick, defense was supposed to be Mayo’s area of expertise. But a Patriots defense that ranked seventh in yards allowed per game (301.6) in 2023 dropped to 23rd (348.7 yards per game) in 2024. The team’s rushing defense, which ranked fourth in 2023, fell to 25th in 2024. The pass rush struggled to get pressure as the unit ranked last in the league with 28 sacks. The defense also surrendered 30 points or more six times this season.
Offensively, the Patriots didn’t score more than 25 points in a game all season long. While Maye’s ascension was a bright spot, the team lacked playmakers in the passing game and the offensive line allowed the fifth-most sacks in the league. Only the Bears and Carolina Panthers averaged fewer yards per game this season, and only the Cleveland Browns and New York Giants scored fewer points.
Part of the problem was Mayo’s inexperience and lack of familiarity with the rest of the NFL. He was drafted 10th by the Patriots in 2008. The University of Tennessee product spent eight seasons with the Patriots, reaching two Pro Bowls, winning Associated Press Defensive Rookie of the Year honors in 2008 and being named a first-team All-Pro in 2010. He played the entirety of his career for Belichick. He spent five years as a position coach with the Patriots and only ever worked for one coach: Belichick. So when it came time to fill out his staff, Mayo didn’t have the Rolodex of league-wide contacts most head coaches do.
He interviewed more than a dozen offensive coordinator candidates because several declined his offer. In the end, Mayo began his tenure surrounded by a first-time front office leader (Wolf), a first-time offensive play caller (Van Pelt), a first-time defensive coordinator (DeMarcus Covington), a first-time special teams coordinator (Jeremy Springer), a first-time linebackers coach (Dont’a Hightower), a first-time offensive line coach (Scott Peters) and a first-time wide receivers coach (Tyler Hughes).
The inexperience showed.
Sources from within the Patriots’ previous regime expressed skepticism that Mayo was ready to be a head coach. Several leaders thought he needed more experience with game planning, play calling and handling big situational decisions. How’d this season play out? “About how we thought,” one said.
Whether it’s Vrabel or someone else, the incoming coach will inherit a rising talent in Maye at quarterback, Stevenson at running back, cornerback Christian Gonzalez and a stout defensive line led by Keion White and Christian Barmore. New England will pick fourth in the 2025 draft. The team will also have a plethora of cap space to address multiple needs on the roster — most notably wide receiver, offensive line, defensive back and pass rusher.
— The Athletic‘s Jeff Howe contributed to this report.
Required reading
• Is coach Jerod Mayo’s job in question after another frustrating Patriots loss?
• How does Drake Maye compare to Mac Jones? They’re closer than you might think
• Patriots’ offseason priorities: A look at the team’s shopping list in free agency
(Photo: Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)
Whatever you do, don’t think of a bird.
Now: What kind of bird are you not thinking about? A pigeon? A bald eagle? Something more poetic, like a skylark or a nightingale? In any case, would you say that this bird you aren’t thinking about is real?
Before you answer, read this poem, which is quite literally about not thinking of a bird.
Human consciousness is full of riddles. Neuroscientists, philosophers and dorm-room stoners argue continually about what it is and whether it even exists. For Wallace Stevens, the experience of having a mind was a perpetual source of wonder, puzzlement and delight — perfectly ordinary and utterly transcendent at the same time. He explored the mysteries and pleasures of consciousness in countless poems over the course of his long poetic career. It was arguably his great theme.
Stevens was born in 1879 and published his first book, “Harmonium,” in 1923, making him something of a late bloomer among American modernists. For much of his adult life, he worked as an executive for the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, rising to the rank of vice president. He viewed insurance less as a day job to support his poetry than as a parallel vocation. He pursued both activities with quiet diligence, spending his days at the office and composing poems in his head as he walked to and from work.
As a young man, Stevens dreamed of traveling to Europe, though he never crossed the Atlantic. In middle age he made regular trips to Florida, and his poems are frequently infused with ideas of Paris and Rome and memories of Key West. Others partake of the stringent beauty of New England. But the landscapes he explores, wintry or tropical, provincial or cosmopolitan, are above all mental landscapes, created by and in the imagination.
Are those worlds real?
Let’s return to the palm tree and its avian inhabitant, in that tranquil Key West sunset of the mind.
Until then, we find consolation in fangles.
When the director Rob Reiner cast his leads in the 1986 film “Stand by Me,” he looked for young actors who were as close as possible to the personalities of the four children they’d be playing. There was the wise beyond his years kid from a rough family (River Phoenix), the slightly dim worrywart (Jerry O’Connell), the cutup with a temper (Corey Feldman) and the sensitive, bookish boy.
Wil Wheaton was perfect for that last one, Gordie Lachance, a doe-eyed child who is ignored by his family in favor of his late older brother. Now, 40 years later, he’s traveling the country to attend anniversary screenings of the film, alongside O’Connell and Feldman, which has thrown him back into the turmoil that he felt as an adolescent.
Wheaton has channeled those emotions and his on-set memories into his latest project: narrating a new audiobook version of “The Body,” the 1982 Stephen King novella on which the film was based.
A few years ago, Wheaton started to float the idea of returning to the story that gave him his big break — that of a quartet of boys in 1959 Oregon, in their last days before high school, setting out to find a classmate’s dead body. “I’ve been telling the story of ‘Stand By Me’ since I was 12 years old,” he said.
But this time was different. Wheaton, who has narrated dozens of audiobooks, including Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One,” says he has come to enjoy narration more than screen acting. “I’m safe, I’m in the booth, nobody’s looking at me and I can just tell you a story.”
The fact that he, an older man looking back on his younger years, is narrating a story about an older man looking back on his younger years, is not lost on Wheaton. King’s original story is bathed in nostalgia. Coming to terms with death and loss is one of its primary themes.
Two days after appearing on stage at the Academy Awards as part of a tribute to Reiner — who was murdered in 2025 alongside his wife, Michele — Wheaton got on the phone to talk about recording the audiobook, reliving his favorite scenes from the film and reexamining a quintessential story of childhood loss through the lens of his own.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
“I felt really close to him, and my memory of him.”
Wheaton on channeling a co-star’s performance.
There’s this wonderful scene in “Stand By Me.” Gordie and Chris are walking down the tracks talking about junior high. Chris is telling Gordie, “I wish to hell I was your dad, because I care about you, and he obviously doesn’t.”
It’s just so honest and direct, in a way that kids talk to each other that adults don’t. And I think that one of the reasons that really sticks with people, and that piece really lands on a lot of audiences, and has for 40 years, is, just too many people have been Gordie in that scene.
That scene is virtually word for word taken from the text of the book. And when I was narrating that, I made a deliberate choice to do my best to recreate what River did in that scene.
“You’re just a kid,
Gordie–”
“I wish to fuck
I was your father!”
he said angrily.
“You wouldn’t go around
talking about takin those stupid shop courses if I was!
It’s like
God gave you something,
all those stories
you can make up, and He said:
This is what we got for you, kid.
Try not to lose it.
But kids lose everything
unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks
are too fucked up to do it
then maybe I ought to.”
I watched that scene a couple of times because I really wanted — I don’t know why it was so important to me to — well, I know: because I loved him, and I miss him. And I wanted to bring him into this as best as I could, right?
So I was reading that scene, and the words are identical to the script. And I had this very powerful flashback to being on the train tracks that day in Cottage Grove, Oregon. And I could see River standing next to them. They’re shooting my side of the scene and there’s River, right next to the camera, doing his off-camera dialogue, and there’s the sound guy, and there’s the boom operator. There’s my key light.
I could hear and feel it. It was the weirdest thing. It’s like I was right back there.
I was able to really take in the emotional memory of being Gordie in all of those scenes. So when I was narrating him and I’m me and I’m old with all of this experience, I just drew on what I remembered from being that little boy and what I remember of those friendships and what they meant to me and what they mean to me today.
“Rob gave me a gift. Rob gave me a career.”
Wheaton recalls the “Stand By Me” director’s way with kids on set, as well as his recent Oscars tribute.
Rob really encouraged us to be kids.
Jerry tells the most amazing story about that scene, where we were all sitting around, and doing our bit, and he improvised. He was just goofing around — we were just playing — and he said something about spitting water at the fat kid.
We get to the end of the scene, and he hears Rob. Rob comes around from behind the thing, and he goes, “Jerry!” And Jerry thinks, “Oh no, I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble because I improvised, and I’m not supposed to improvise.”
The context for Jerry is that he had been told by the adults in his life, “Sit on your hands and shut up. Stop trying to be a cutup. Stop trying to be funny. Stop disrupting people. Just be quiet.” And Jerry thinks, “Oh my God. I didn’t shut up. I’m in trouble. I’m gonna get fired.”
Rob leans in to all of us, and Rob says, “Hey, guys, do you see that? More of that. Do that!”
The whole time when you’re a kid actor, you’re just around all these adults who are constantly telling you to grow up. They’re mad that you’re being a kid. Rob just created an environment where not only was it supported that we would be kids — and have fun, and follow those kid instincts and do what was natural — it was expected. It was encouraged. We were supposed to do it.
They chanted together:
“I don’t shut up,
I grow up.
And when I look at you I throw up.”
“Then your mother goes around the corner
and licks it up,”
I said, and hauled ass out of there,
giving them the finger over my shoulder as I went.
I never had any friends later on
like the ones I had when I was twelve.
Jesus, did you?
When we were at the Oscars, I looked at Jerry. And we looked at this remarkable assemblage of the most amazingly talented, beautiful artists and storytellers. We looked around, and Jerry leans down, and he said, “We all got our start with Rob Reiner. He trusted every single one of us.”
And to stand there for him, when I really thought that I would be standing with him to talk about this stuff — it was a lot.
“I was really really really excited — like jumping up and down.”
The scene Wheaton was most looking forward to narrating: the tale of Lard Ass Hogan.
I was so excited to narrate it. It’s a great story! It’s a funny story. It’s such a lovely break — it’s an emotional and tonal shift from what’s happening in the movie.
I know this as a writer: You work to increase and release tension throughout a narrative, and Stephen King uses humor really effectively to release that tension. But it also raises the stakes, because we have these moments of joy and these moments of things being very silly in the midst of a lot of intensity.
That’s why the story of Lard Ass Hogan is so fun for me to tell. Because in the middle of that, we stop to do something that’s very, very fun, and very silly and very celebratory.
“Will you shut up and let him tell it?”
Teddy hollered.
Vern blinked.
“Sure. Yeah.
Okay.”
“Go on, Gordie,”
Chris said. “It’s not really much—”
“Naw,
we don’t expect much from a wet end like you,”
Teddy said,
“but tell it anyway.”
I cleared my throat. “So anyway.
It’s Pioneer Days,
and on the last night
they have these three big events.
There’s an egg-roll for the little kids and a sack-race for kids that are like eight or nine,
and then there’s the pie-eating contest.
And the main guy of the story
is this fat kid nobody likes
named Davie Hogan.”
When I narrate this story — whenever there is a moment of levity or humor, whenever there are those brief little moments that are the seasoning of the meal that makes it all so real and relatable — yes, it was very important to me to capture those moments.
I’m shifting in my chair, so I can feel each of those characters. It’s something that doesn’t exist in live action. It doesn’t exist in any other media.
“I feel the loss.”
Wheaton remembers River Phoenix.
The novella “The Body” is very much about Gordie remembering Chris. It’s darker, and it’s more painful, than the movie is.
I’ve been watching the movie on this tour and seeing River a lot. I remember him as a 14- and 15-year-old kid who just seemed so much older, and so much more experienced and so much wiser than me, and I’m only a year younger than him.
What hurts me now, and what I really felt when I was narrating this, is knowing what River was going through then. We didn’t know. I still don’t know the extent of how he was mistreated, but I know that he was. I know that adults failed him. That he should have been protected in every way that matters. And he just wasn’t.
And I, like Gordie, remember a boy who was loving. So loving, and generous and cared deeply about everyone around him, all the time. Who deserved to live a full life. Who had so much to offer the world. And it’s so unfair that he’s gone and taken from us. I had to go through a decades-long grieving process to come to terms with him dying.
Near the end
of 1971,
Chris
went into a Chicken Delight in Portland
to get a three-piece Snack Bucket.
Just ahead of him,
two men started arguing
about which one had been first in line. One of them pulled a knife.
Chris,
who had always been the best of us
at making peace,
stepped between them and was stabbed in the throat.
The man with the knife had spent time in four different institutions;
he had been released from Shawshank State Prison
only the week before.
Chris died almost instantly.
It is a privilege that I was allowed to tell this story. I get to tell Gordie Lachance’s story as originally imagined by Stephen King, with all of the experience of having lived my whole adult life with the memory of spending three months in Gordie Lachance’s skin.
Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights offbeat television shows that began as comic books. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the comics and their screen versions.
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