Patriots Fire Jerod Mayo So Fast I Wasn't Even Finished Bitching About How They Won

Not to be the bearer of breaking news, but this season wasn't the greatest for Patriots fans. After a waste of an offseason, expectations going into the year were at an all time low. And it went just about according to plan.

A 2023-matching four wins, a not so 2023-matching pathetic defense, a penalty-ridden offense, and spiraling stories of locker room dissent every other week, there wasn't a lot of positives coming out of Foxborough outside of our beaming light of a rookie QB (which is a big positive - but not what this post is about).

Sunday was the culmination of this bombshell of a season. After two months of losses in which I pleaded for just one win to boost morale in the locker room, we found ourselves at the cusp of the one thing any bad team can get through the offseason with - the first pick in the draft. One more loss for glory, if you will.

But we unfortunately played a Bills team who was locked into the two seed, had nothing to play for and played their backups. So in the eleventh hour, when we needed it the least, we found the win I'd been longing for.

To be fair we tried our best. We sat Drake Maye for no other reason than to give ourselves the best chance to lose. I can assure you it wasn't to see what we had in Joe Milton. You can never ask guys to intentionally lose a game, and I'd never want to be a part of an organization that does, so sitting guys that aren't dependent on the game for future employment opportunities is the only thing you can do.

Players will always play hard, cause they're fighting for jobs. Many guys that get playing time in week 18 are putting out the only tape they'll be able to show other teams come free agency. The ones who've played all year on bad teams have one last chance to show their own team or any other team they're worthy of a roster spot next year. In a very, very long list of reasons why football and the NFL is the best sport on the planet, this is another of those reasons.

But it was just so fitting it happened this way. In a year where we shot ourselves in the foot every chance we got, we Plaxico Buress'ed ourselves one more time - by winning no less.

As I'm airpunching my way across my apartment about losing the first pick, notifications of Jerod Mayo's firing bombard my phone. And while my emotions swirled from shock to comprehension, the feeling that stuck was sadness.

Sad that the franchise I love so much is in this spot. That we're quickly becoming my worst fear, as I outlined last year when the rumors of Belichick's dismissal began:

I fear that RKK still has Super Bowl fever, and instead of pulling in some of the long rope leash Bill has earned over the years, he's cutting it off after five years of not making it. I'm nervous a firing would set a bad precedent. Is one horrible and two mediocre seasons all it takes for a six-time champion, 20+ year tenured head coach to be canned? He doesn't have more leeway than that? That feels like a slippery slope to start going down. What if a new coach comes in and goes 6-11 his first two seasons? We fire him too? And become a coaching carousel franchise like other losers around the league?

That one year into the next chapter of the Patriots, under the reigns of the coach the Kraft's hand selected years ago to be the future, we're blowing it up.

Now I'm aware how bad this season was. I'm aware that little to no progress was made as the season progressed. But I can't sit here and say with a straight face many coaches in the league would've made waves with this team and this roster this year.

This was one of the worst constructed teams in recent NFL memory. A team with no talent coming out of last year and the most cap space in the league did absolutely nothing in free agency to bolster itself. We drafted two dud receivers and a couple mid round lineman to "fix" the most glaring issues on the roster outside of QB. And traded one of our best defensive players while another missed 90% of the season with blood clots.

You can criticize Mayo's coaching all you want, it's in many ways deserved. But what you can't do is say the guy got a fair shot. That in his first stint at the helm in his career, and likely the last given how Kraft has handled his tenure, was given this roster and the results that followed surprised.

The whole situation pisses me off. A Patriots legend was thrown to the curb after one horrendous year for another Patriots legend in waiting. Then, one year later, that lesser Patriots legend was thrown to the curb after one bad season coaching a bad news bears roster. We're quickly becoming the team that coaches are afraid to coach. The team with a hot-tempered owner with unlofty expectations. We're becoming the fucking Panthers.

So now what? We hire someone else and if they don't have a good season next year we can them too? Are we actually going to spend money this offseason? Are the Krafts willing to admit we need to overpay to get anyone to want to play here?

I hope Drake Maye will help with all the above. Coaches should watch him and be excited about the talent they can develop. Players, WRs, should be excited about the opportunity to see what they can become with this kid. It's possible we could become a destination.

But not right now. I'm sure Mayo won't be the only firing. I expect both coordinators to be unemployed soon, and Eliot Wolf to no longer be in charge. If Mayo's gonna go, they all should.

I don't know if firing Mayo was the wrong choice. In so many ways he seemed to be in over his head. But I do know he got a raw deal. I don't think he was given the chance the succeed, or the time, given his circumstances, to outlast the learning curve on how to.

I hope he gets another chance, cause I like the guy, but I won't hold my breath. My Jerod Mayo jersey lost a lot of lure today. I can't believe this is us.