“Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” Vince Lombardi, Hall of Fame coach of the Green Bay Packers
Winning is the only thing? Not in Foxborough this week.
Jerod Mayo won a football game last Sunday and got fired.
He coached the New England Patriots to a 23-16 victory over the division-leading Buffalo Bills in the 2024 finale. About 90 minutes later he was unemployed.
As soon as the Patriots began trudging off the Gillette Stadium turf, and before Robert Kraft delivered the pink slip, Mayo’s critics tipped the cauldron of frustration that had bubbled since September.
By winning Sunday and finishing 4-13, Mayo cost the Patriots the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft and the chance to trade for multiple picks.
By winning Sunday the Patriots will pick fourth instead of first.
All season Mayo was a sloppy game manager.
Mayo delivered mixed messages to players, media and fans.
Late in the season the Patriots still made fundamental errors and incurred stupid penalties like false starts and holding.
Even in their winning effort Sunday, the Pats had to waste a timeout to avoid a flag for too many men on the field.
Mayo never should have been promoted to head coach in the first place.
Print critics and talk jocks have continued writing and barking all week, many of their points valid. Still, I could not believe it when I read that Mayo should have been fired for winning the Buffalo game.
Veteran Boston Globe columnist Chad Finn, usually a reasonable voice, wrote this: “The way Jerod Mayo and his coaching staff handled the Patriots’ lose-by-winning season finale Sunday was the definition of a fireable offense.”
What? Winning is a fireable offense? Are you kidding?
Finn continued: “The harsh truth is this: Mayo’s decision to coach to win — the last and most damaging of his string of often contradictory if not outright inexplicable decisions — showed a complete lack of awareness regarding what is best for the Patriots’ present and future.”
Wow! I thought Mayo got paid to win.
I could argue that he did his best to lose and preserve that No.1 pick in the draft — as Finn and scores of others had hoped. Quarterback Drake Maye played the first series and took a seat. Third-stringer Joe Milton III made his NFL debut and played the rest of the game. Cornerback Christian Gonzalez and tight end Hunter Henry, the best of the rest of the Pats after Maye, were inactive. Running back Rhamondre Stevenson never touched the ball. Subs relieved starters who weren’t very good in the first place.
What else could Mayo have done? Run it up the middle every down?
And who knew the rookie Milton would shine? He completed his first 11 passes and finished 22-29 for 241 yards and a beautiful 48-yard touchdown throw to Kayshon Boutte. He also ran for 16 yards and a touchdown.
Should we have expected Milton and his teammates not to try? He spent the season running plays for the scout team in practice, and he’s going to tank in his first real game? I hope not.
The Pats were a bad football team this season. So bad they could have lost the Buffalo game without trying. But Buffalo helped the Pats win last Sunday. MVP candidate Josh Allen took one snap at QB and then took a seat. Bills bench players got minutes so the starters could rest for the playoffs.
Perhaps Mayo should have been fired. The Patriots finished 4-13 and did not improve from start to finish. That’s on the head coach.
But perhaps he should have received another chance. The Patriots had the worst roster in the NFL, a rookie quarterback, and draft picks and free agents who were busts. That’s on owner Robert Kraft, not coach Jared Mayo. Kraft hired Mayo knowing full well his credentials were as thin as the roster.
“This whole situation is on me,” Kraft said during a media session Monday, the day after he fired Mayo. “I feel terrible for Jerod because I put him in an untenable situation. I know he has all the tools as a head coach to be successful in this league. He just needed more time before taking the job.”
Then again, Mayo should have known the challenges ahead when he said yes. He also should have known that following a six-time Super Bowl winner was risky business.
The hunt is on for the next Patriots coach. Will it be Patriots Hall of Famer and former Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel, seemingly everybody’s favorite. Or an assistant or coordinator from another team? We’ll find out soon enough.
Mayo finished 4-13 but with a win. Bill Belichick finished 4-13 in 2023, his last in New England, but with a loss, 17-3 to the Jets.
Belichick also had a losing record — 5-11 — in 2000, his first season in New England, but he kept his job. Between 2000 and 2023, he won big: 296 games, 17 division titles and six Super Bowls.
Of course, little-known Tom Brady blossomed into the greatest quarterback of all time. That helped.
One final note. That “Winning isn’t everything . . . “ quotation attributed to Lombardi? Wrong. UCLA football coach Henry Russell “Red” Sanders said it in 1950. Lombardi heard it and ran with it. Years later he said he used a variation of the famous line.
