Patriots owner Robert Kraft says he put Jerod Mayo in 'untenable situation,' vows to correct course

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — When Robert Kraft hired Jerod Mayo a year ago, he felt he’d identified the right person to follow the championship legacy left by Bill Belichick.

In hindsight, Kraft now believes Mayo wasn’t quite ready to be an NFL head coach.

The Patriots team owner said Monday that his abrupt firing of Mayo just minutes after he completed his first season in the job is an effort to correct that mistake.

“This whole situation is on me. I feel terrible for Jerod. Because I put him in an untenable situation,” Kraft said a day after relieving the 38-year-old Mayo of the coaching reins following a 4-13 finish. “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.”

Kraft said that the team’s win over Buffalo on Sunday which cost the Patriots the No. 1 overall pick in April’s NFL draft didn’t play into the dismissal.

Instead, he said Mayo went from his “high point” winning Patriots’ season opener at Cincinnati to regressing midway through the schedule. He then didn’t show enough signs of improvement the rest of the way.

And after watching back-to-back dismals seasons for a franchise that won six Lombardi trophies over the past two-plus decades, the 83-year-old owner who referred to himself as “a fan of this team first” vowed to do what he can to see it return to a championship level.

“I don’t want to go through this next year. And we’re going to do what we’ve got to do to fix it,” Kraft said.

That will begin with moving quickly to interview candidates for a job that is one of the most attractive in the league for several reasons: New England’s futility this season still earned it the No. 4 pick in the draft, rookie Drake Maye established himself as a potential franchise quarterback, and the Patriots enter the offseason with more than $130 million in salary cap space — the most in the league.

What this course correction won’t include — for now at least — are major changes in the front office, with Kraft confirming that executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf and senior personnel executive Alonzo Highsmith both are returning next season.

Wolf and Highsmith will also both be involved in the coaching search, along with Kraft’s son and Patriots team president Jonathan Kraft.

One of the names that almost immediately circulated as a possible coaching candidate following Mayo’s exit was former Patriots player and Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel.

A fan favorite during his eight seasons as a player in New England, Vrabel was a member of each of the Patriots’ first three Super Bowl-winning teams.

Following retirement, he went on to lead the Titans to three playoff appearances before being fired following the 2023 season.

But Kraft wouldn’t say whether Vrabel was at or near the top of his list of candidates.

“I don’t know all the people involved. There are some wonderful people we’ve heard about, Kraft said. “I’d rather respond to that after I’ve seen everyone.”

As they cleaned out their lockers Monday before departing for the offseason, multiple current Patriots players expressed surprise at Mayo’s firing.

“Everybody is upset about his departure,” defensive tackle Deatrich Wise said. “We all respected Jerod Mayo. Held him in high regard. He did a lot for us this year. He was a great leader. Fantastic person and a coach. So, we’re all sad to see him go. Wish we all could have had a chance to say goodbye. Didn’t really see him. It happened so fast.”

Fellow defensive tackle Davon Godchaux said it’s a reality of the NFL. But he said it will take more than just a new coach to turn the team around.

“I feel like everybody being accountable. Everybody. Players. Coaches — everybody,” Godchaux said. “If we can do that, things will start moving forward. Until then, we’ve got a long journey.”

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New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo on the sideline during the first half of an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, in Foxborough, Mass. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo departs after answering questions following an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, in Foxborough, Mass. Mayo was fired shortly after the news conference. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft answers a question during a media availability, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in Foxborough, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, right, talks with his son Jonathan prior to an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, in Foxborough, Mass. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft answers a question during a media availability, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in Foxborough, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft answers a question during a media availability, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in Foxborough, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft listens to a reporter's question during a media availability, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in Foxborough, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft answers a question during a media availability, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, in Foxborough, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia Democrats preserved their Statehouse majority on Tuesday in the first test of voters’ energy since President-elect Donald Trump’s win in November, which left many party members across the country reckoning with their losses in federal elections.

Tuesday’s races were the first official elections in Virginia since November’s presidential contest. State Senate Democrats had a narrow 20-18 majority, making the special elections key to the party’s efforts to preserve a majority in both chambers during Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s last year in office. In the House of Delegates, Democrats had a 50-49 lead.

In northern Loudoun County, Democrat Kannan Srinivasan defeated Republican Tumay Harding in the race to succeed Suhas Subramanyam, a Democrat elected to the U.S. House in November. In an overlapping House of Delegates district, Democrat JJ Singh bested Republican Ram Venkatachalam in an election to replace Srinivasan, who vacated his House of Delegates seat after becoming a nominee for the special Senate election.

In central Goochland County, Republican Luther Cifers defeated Democrat Jack Trammell in the race to succeed U.S. Rep. John McGuire. McGuire clinched Virginia’s 5th Congressional District after narrowly defeating former U.S. Rep. Bob Good by less than a percentage point in a bitter primary, which led to a recount last August.

Srinivasan, the first Indian American immigrant elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, and Singh, a Virginia native and son of Indian immigrants, hoped to hold the Democratic seats in a county where data shows that Vice President Kamala Harris received 57% of the vote in her failed bid against Trump. Both Singh and Srinivasan had largely centered their campaigns around abortion rights in Virginia as Democrats are working to enshrine a constitutional right to abortion in the state.

Harding, the daughter of Turkish Uzbek immigrants, and Venkatachalam, an Indian American immigrant, vied to flip the Senate and House seats from Democrats. Both candidates, who each unsuccessfully ran for the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in 2023, centered their state campaigns along party lines, such as parents’ rights, crime and the economy.

In the 10th District, conservatives put their weight behind Cifers to succeed McGuire following a lengthy, multi-ballot primary among Republican voters last month. Cifers, a Prince Edward County resident and president of a Virginia-based kayaking business, said he never envisioned himself running for office but wanted to bring a different perspective to the legislature, particularly regarding housing and the economy.

Trammell, who unsuccessfully ran for the 7th U.S. House District in 2014, hoped to flip the Republican stronghold, which supported Trump by more than 25 points in November, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project. Trammell said he partly decided to run for office because he believed his community should have a competitive electoral process.

FILE - House of Delegates members walk past the south portico at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, April 22, 2020. (Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP, Pool, File)