Hold the Mayo? Evaluating Patriots coaching.

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Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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I don't think they had nearly enough talent to be picky about receiver positions and styles. If they did, then that is a misreading of the team AND the draft. They needed skill players at every position and having a couple fringe average players already shouldn't have prevented them from picking one that does the same stuff if they liked him. McConkey is playing 80% of snaps for LAC when healthy anyway, he's a keeper. When you have so many needs you can do a lot worse than just picking chalk every round if you get cute or desperate.

If they had prime Welker, OK, but they don't. Douglas is a nice player for a 6th rounder but he's not exactly lighting things up and the TEs aren't going to be part of the next playoff team.
If they knew McConkey was going to be this good right away, I'm sure they would have picked him. But you they didn't know that and neither did anybody else. The draft involves a huge amount of variance and luck so you need to judge GMs mainly on their process unless you've got a huge sample of results, which we don't. The thought process of trading down three spots to pick up a 4th rounder rather than "reaching" on a slot receiver when the Xs went off the board really wasn't a bad one. Picking Polk is another matter once they got there.
 

Harry Hooper

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I thought "see you Wednesday" edicts were pretty common among NFL teams in the homestretch of the season, but coming right after the bye week is odd.

Big radio topic this morning was any Patriots plan to retain Mayo but bring in new coaches under him will run into the issue that nobody really good will take a job in NE when Mayo is a prime candidate himself to be fired during/after his second season as head coach.


Addendum: Unless Kraft goes to his playbook again of telling the new hire he's the head coach in waiting. BB will get a chuckle out of that scenario and send Mayo some choice texts.
 

Trapaholic

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When Belichick left, so did all the football knowledge in the organization. The guy was doing the job of 4 or 5 people. This organization is going through a tremendous amount of brain drain, pretty much starting from scratch.

What we have now is similar to an MLB team in 2024 evaluating every player by using batting average alone. Feels like the Patriots are 20 years behind other teams in terms of scheme, development, and innovation.

I really do not like the idea of simultaneously developing a coach and a quarterback at the same time. Ownership is going to have to pony up some serious money to get an experienced coach in here.

Apologies for another baseball analogy, but that's the main sport I follow. Last winter, Breslow and the Red Sox hired a 3rd party consulting firm to analyze the entire organization and see where the redundancies are. This team needs a fresh set of eyeballs to evaluate the entire operation from top to bottom.
 

nattysez

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Obvious point, I guess, but it's possible that the Patriots get absolutely boat-raced these last three games. I wonder if Kraft's feelings about Mayo evolve if they lose by 100 combined points over the next three games.
 
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Mystic Merlin

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Obvious point, I guess, but it's possible that that Patriots get absolutely boat-raced these last three games. I wonder if Kraft's feelings about Mayo evolve if they lose by 100 combined points over the next three games.
I’m quite skeptical he would fire Mayo absent serous off-field transgressions, but until he issues a public vote of confidence it can’t be totally ruled out.
 

Bigdogx

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National shame might be the only thing that will move Kraft to make a coaching change.
Sadly it is looking to me like the Krafts are going to be too pig headed and selfish to admit their hiring of Mayo and not going outside for a completely revamped coaching staff and GM was a mistake. Running it back next year with this clown show just means another year of Maye wasted....
 

astrozombie

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When Belichick left, so did all the football knowledge in the organization. The guy was doing the job of 4 or 5 people. This organization is going through a tremendous amount of brain drain, pretty much starting from scratch.

What we have now is similar to an MLB team in 2024 evaluating every player by using batting average alone. Feels like the Patriots are 20 years behind other teams in terms of scheme, development, and innovation.

I really do not like the idea of simultaneously developing a coach and a quarterback at the same time. Ownership is going to have to pony up some serious money to get an experienced coach in here.

Apologies for another baseball analogy, but that's the main sport I follow. Last winter, Breslow and the Red Sox hired a 3rd party consulting firm to analyze the entire organization and see where the redundancies are. This team needs a fresh set of eyeballs to evaluate the entire operation from top to bottom.
The consulting thing with the Red Sox is slightly different. Typically those things are done not to improve baseball operations (especially on the field), but rather to determine where the company can save money. If the team gets any better as a result, that is a happy accident. But those guys are brought in to figure out how to save costs, not how to make the team/company any better. The Pats, to your first point, have an issue with brain drain/wrong hires and not necessarily too many redundancies. If anything, having a few *more* (competent and empowered, obviously) voices in the room might be helpful.
 

ShaneTrot

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Kraft has hired two coaches before Mayo, Carroll and BB. That's a pretty good track record. He is not an idiot. I have been consistently pro-Mayo because the offensive roster is garbage besides Maye, the TEs, and RBs. The line is so far below replacement level. You cannot scheme up plays when your line cannot pass block. The majority of offensive lines can run block well enough to get you one yard on two shots on third and fourth down. This garbage is on Wolf, I doubt Dante Scarnecchia could coach up this crew. Pats were 0 for 6 on third down and most of that was the line, the hold by Robinson put you in awful situation, Lowe was a turnstile, and they could not get the yard when they needed it.

My beef with Mayo is the defense is awful, you come out of your bye week and you are playing a team that has lost three in a row, and they roll your defense. They were 10 for 15 on third down, the Pats had no sacks, and barely any pressure on Murray who had sucked for weeks. They couldn't scheme up any pressure on Murray. They got run on and let Kyler's binky McBride catch 9 balls on 10 targets. Your expensive safeties gave up huge plays on the Conner 53 yard run and the Dortch 39 yard reception. PFF has Dugger as one of the worst safeties this year. You paid this guy, and I want to give him a break because of his ankle injury, but he has been horrible all year. Plus you forced no TOs. Only the Raiders and Jaguars have forced fewer turnovers than the Pats. When the defense needs to make a play, they never do. Are these players that bad? They were much better last year.

Maye and Gonzalez are by far the best players on the team. Who's next? Schooler, Jennings, Henry? The rest of the team has regressed and I don't know how much blame is Wolf or Mayo but this cannot go on.
 

Van Everyman

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I absolutely do not think the Krafts are incapable of making a coaching change. I'm not saying that because they're brilliant -- but I do think they're capable of admitting a mistake, or at least that something just didn't work out.

I would also just say: this has been a tricky last few years for the franchise that I'm not sure too many owners would have navigated much, if any, better. They create a succession plan for when the time came for Bill to go because they must have believed that the culture he built was worth sustaining. They almost certainly underestimated how hard it would be to sustain -- again, not "because of Kraft's ego" but because they miscalculated as about a half dozen other owners did how much of that culture was due to Bill himself.

I also think they did not expect Bill's on-field results to crater quite as dramatically as they did -- and for him to become so unpredictable in the process. The Patricia/Judge decision, perhaps wanting to move on from Mac, the complete collapse and dysfunction of the offense when BOB came on. From their perspective, they probably thought, "We put our faith in Bill, choosing him over Tom. He has complete power over this team -- and his decision-making is getting increasingly incoherent and results are trending downward."

So, as I said in my previous post, I think they tried to kind of split the difference -- moving on from Bill but keeping a lot of the players, personnel and coaching staff. And the results mostly speak for themselves: pretty much all of Bill's guys have underperformed absent his coaching acumen. The new guys selected by the leftover personnel staff, barring Maye, aren't very good.

Put simply, it's still Bill's organization but it's missing Bill (and Tom, but that's kind of another story). So I'm not sure we should be that surprised that this has worked out the way it has -- or that Mayo has struggled. Regardless of whether he could put his own imprint on this team, he's never really had the chance to -- and barring a fair amount of changes, likely won't.
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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View: https://twitter.com/BenVolin/status/1868422149914193980


I'm very, very concerned with the direction this team goes over the next year.

At 0:16, Jonathan Kraft nods to his dads statement and absolutely says, "play calling is terrible." None of us are lip-readers, but none of us have to be. It's clear as day.

So, why do people think Mayo is so comfortable throwing AVP under the bus during the postgame press conference? Despite the media lumping Mayo/AVP together ("Jonathan Kraft caught fuming on TV at Patriots as Jerod Mayo frustration grows", "How Jerod Mayo Handled Questions About Viral Jonathan Kraft Clip", etc), the Krafts are well aware who is actually making these "terrible" play calls. We didn't catch Kraft saying, "the team is a shitshow" or whatever. We caught him shitting specifically on the offensive play-calling.

You don't need to be Matlock to connect the dots on this. Mayo has passed the buck to AVP, the Krafts have agreed. The one decent coach on the staff will be the sacrifice, and the team will spend another year digging even deeper into pure ineptitude.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Kraft has hired two coaches before Mayo, Carroll and BB. That's a pretty good track record. He is not an idiot.
Bob Kraft is 83 years old. He has very clearly lost his mental fastball, and that's not a personal criticism, it's just a fact of life due to his age. It's fair to say that he's not making decisions from the same mental base that he was when he hired Carroll (when Bob was 56) or when he hired Belichick (when he was 59).
 

Eddie Jurak

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Kraft's age could weigh in favor of making a move. If he wants to live to see the next good Pats team, he may be less inclined to stand pat (NPI) here.
 

BusRaker

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Situational football used to be a big strength for the Pats. That sure has changed.

I never expected special teams to be a bright spot this year after last's year debacle. Can Springer coach the other groups as well?
 

Al Zarilla

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Auger34

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Kraft has hired two coaches before Mayo, Carroll and BB. That's a pretty good track record. He is not an idiot. I have been consistently pro-Mayo because the offensive roster is garbage besides Maye, the TEs, and RBs. The line is so far below replacement level. You cannot scheme up plays when your line cannot pass block. The majority of offensive lines can run block well enough to get you one yard on two shots on third and fourth down. This garbage is on Wolf, I doubt Dante Scarnecchia could coach up this crew. Pats were 0 for 6 on third down and most of that was the line, the hold by Robinson put you in awful situation, Lowe was a turnstile, and they could not get the yard when they needed it.

My beef with Mayo is the defense is awful, you come out of your bye week and you are playing a team that has lost three in a row, and they roll your defense. They were 10 for 15 on third down, the Pats had no sacks, and barely any pressure on Murray who had sucked for weeks. They couldn't scheme up any pressure on Murray. They got run on and let Kyler's binky McBride catch 9 balls on 10 targets. Your expensive safeties gave up huge plays on the Conner 53 yard run and the Dortch 39 yard reception. PFF has Dugger as one of the worst safeties this year. You paid this guy, and I want to give him a break because of his ankle injury, but he has been horrible all year. Plus you forced no TOs. Only the Raiders and Jaguars have forced fewer turnovers than the Pats. When the defense needs to make a play, they never do. Are these players that bad? They were much better last year.

Maye and Gonzalez are by far the best players on the team. Who's next? Schooler, Jennings, Henry? The rest of the team has regressed and I don't know how much blame is Wolf or Mayo but this cannot go on.
Great post.

Mayo has put his foot in his mouth a bunch. The team doesn’t look good….but I still think you need to give him one more year. The roster is so bad.

With Wolf, I think you probably cut ties. He’s been around long enough and has been an integral part of putting together this roster.

Next best player is probably Barmore (his injury was really bad luck). After that, I don’t even know. Onwenu? It’s a pretty precipitous drop
 
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Steve Dillard

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Bob Kraft is 83 years old. He has very clearly lost his mental fastball, and that's not a personal criticism, it's just a fact of life due to his age. It's fair to say that he's not making decisions from the same mental base that he was when he hired Carroll (when Bob was 56) or when he hired Belichick (when he was 59).
You get to a certain age and you want to be around people you like [/BB]
Hiring guys based on how they are while accompanying you on a vacation may not be the best method.
 

RedOctober3829

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I am much more worried about the job Eliot Wolf and the front office will do than I am of the coaching staff. This is the most critical offseason since Brady left. They have the QB now. They will have undoubtedly another top 5 pick and almost $120 million in cap space. This offseason is going to shape the direction, good or bad, of this team for the next 5 years. After seeing what they did this past offseason, I have very little confidence in Eliot Wolf and the FO to make the right decisions in both free agency/trades and also the draft. Their evaulations of OL stunk. Their evaluation of Ja'Lynn Polk stunk. The only decent outside signings were Antonio Gibson and Jaylinn Hawkins. Of the re-signings, taking Barmore out of it how many of those players have either played as well or better for a consistent amount of time?
 

DJnVa

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Their evaluations of OL stunk. Their evaluation of Ja'Lynn Polk stunk. The only decent outside signings were Antonio Gibson and Jaylinn Hawkins. Of the re-signings, taking Barmore out of it how many of those players have either played as well or better for a consistent amount of time?
I don't know--the better OL didn't want to come here. There wasn't much they could really do about that unless they wanted to drastically overpay. I think (hope?) they were keeping their powder dry for this offseason.

Here's the OL they can go get to play OT: 2025 Free Agent OTs At least they can sell them on Maye at this point and we are going to be more willing to pay. At WR, you gotta hope they can go get Higgins or Godwin. It thins out a little after that.

If they can fill at least one of those needs in FA then the draft focus sharpens. There's a path for Wolf, hopefully he finds it.
 

Pandemonium67

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Agree with all of the above about Wolf, but I have no faith in Mayo either. The defense returned many of the same players and are far worse than last year, like several tiers worse. And defense is supposed to be his strong suit (offense certainly isn't).
 

Jed Zeppelin

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My biggest concern is just getting into the cycle of Bad Team Front Office Stuff like ownership meddling, getting too involved in player selection, getting a new FO but making them keep the coach, only going to the well of people you know (McDaniels), etc. There is a lot of potential to turn things around in a positive way, as fortunes can change really quickly in this league if you have a good QB, but there are also a lot of ingredients for disaster here especially if The Old Man and his Angry Adult Son can't be clear-headed about this.
 

BigJimEd

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I don't know--the better OL didn't want to come here. There wasn't much they could really do about that unless they wanted to drastically overpay. I think (hope?) they were keeping their powder dry for this offseason.

Here's the OL they can go get to play OT: 2025 Free Agent OTs At least they can sell them on Maye at this point and we are going to be more willing to pay. At WR, you gotta hope they can go get Higgins or Godwin. It thins out a little after that.

If they can fill at least one of those needs in FA then the draft focus sharpens. There's a path for Wolf, hopefully he finds it.
Yes, as someone mentioned in the one of these threads, you could see Wolf's plan. I wanted them to be more aggressive last offseason but understand why it unfolded they way it did. Hopefully, assuming Wolf is still here, he finds that path in the offseason.
 

Cellar-Door

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Part of the problem assessing a first time coach and a 1st time GM is... Its hard to assign blame. The money FA were.. Hooper, Gibson, Jacoby and Okarafor... All but Okorafor were basically as expected. Is Okorafor an evaluation miss or a coaching one?

For the draft.. Polk was maybe a half round reach... He's been the worst rookie WR... Did the whole league miss on his talent, or is it coaching? Wallace has been hurt, 4th round rookies and on are irrelevant.

A marriage between GM and HC is key, it's why you either hire them together or have a long time GM who you let hire the coach. With BB they were the same guy.. Now? Is Wolf drafting and signing who Mayo wants? Which guy has more juice in the building, how much does ownership put pressure (especially given they dangled Wolf until late). Really hard to tell, and even harder to tell early on whether (outside maybe QB) the coaching is developing guys and using them effectively. Basically all the defensive re-signings look worse.. To me that seems more coaching than talent eval.. Those guys were here last year, they are all reasonably aged..
 

Justthetippett

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Part of the problem assessing a first time coach and a 1st time GM is... Its hard to assign blame. The money FA were.. Hooper, Gibson, Jacoby and Okarafor... All but Okorafor were basically as expected. Is Okorafor an evaluation miss or a coaching one?

For the draft.. Polk was maybe a half round reach... He's been the worst rookie WR... Did the whole league miss on his talent, or is it coaching? Wallace has been hurt, 4th round rookies and on are irrelevant.

A marriage between GM and HC is key, it's why you either hire them together or have a long time GM who you let hire the coach. With BB they were the same guy.. Now? Is Wolf drafting and signing who Mayo wants? Which guy has more juice in the building, how much does ownership put pressure (especially given they dangled Wolf until late). Really hard to tell, and even harder to tell early on whether (outside maybe QB) the coaching is developing guys and using them effectively. Basically all the defensive re-signings look worse.. To me that seems more coaching than talent eval.. Those guys were here last year, they are all reasonably aged..
I agree, this is hard, but I think that's why they both stay or both go. Whatever the division of fault, they sink or swim together. Neither has a track record to justify keeping one and firing the other. So if you are the Krafts, you assess the system and decide if you want to give it another shot. I personally think they have shown what they are (net negatives), but maybe the Krafts think there is room for growth. Or maybe you go get a High Mukkety Muk type (Pioli, Dimitrioff, etc.) to add to the mix but otherwise run it back.
 

RedOctober3829

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I don't know--the better OL didn't want to come here. There wasn't much they could really do about that unless they wanted to drastically overpay. I think (hope?) they were keeping their powder dry for this offseason.

Here's the OL they can go get to play OT: 2025 Free Agent OTs At least they can sell them on Maye at this point and we are going to be more willing to pay. At WR, you gotta hope they can go get Higgins or Godwin. It thins out a little after that.

If they can fill at least one of those needs in FA then the draft focus sharpens. There's a path for Wolf, hopefully he finds it.
They're going to have to overpay Ronnie Stanley to come here too if he even shakes out to FA. Everybody they will have to overpay to come to this team as well. I would not just be looking at tackles. I think the best overall lineman that may be available is Kansas City guard Trey Smith. If you could come away from FA with Ronnie Stanley, Morgan Moses, and Trey Smith I think that goes a long ways in fixing the line. WR-wise, there's a good number of players that would be welcomed on this team. Higgins, Godwin, Stefon Diggs, Amari Cooper, Darius Slayton, Keenan Allen would all be upgrades to major upgrades in what they have.

Defensively, I'd be going after guys like BJ Hill/Javon Kinlaw in the interior DL, Josh Sweat/Chase Young along with a Wise re-signing at EDGE, Zach Baun/Isaiah Simmons/Kyzir White/EJ Speed at LB, and Jevon Holland at free safety would be a priority of mine. If they can take care of a number of areas of need in FA/trade time, that wouldn't pidgeon hole Wolf into a certain position in the top 5. I would love to have the luxury of taking a unicorn like Travis Hunter because the line is somewhat taken care of beforehand.
 

Cellar-Door

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They're going to have to overpay Ronnie Stanley to come here too if he even shakes out to FA. Everybody they will have to overpay to come to this team as well. I would not just be looking at tackles. I think the best overall lineman that may be available is Kansas City guard Trey Smith. If you could come away from FA with Ronnie Stanley, Morgan Moses, and Trey Smith I think that goes a long ways in fixing the line. WR-wise, there's a good number of players that would be welcomed on this team. Higgins, Godwin, Stefon Diggs, Amari Cooper, Darius Slayton, Keenan Allen would all be upgrades to major upgrades in what they have.

Defensively, I'd be going after guys like BJ Hill/Javon Kinlaw in the interior DL, Josh Sweat/Chase Young along with a Wise re-signing at EDGE, Zach Baun/Isaiah Simmons/Kyzir White/EJ Speed at LB, and Jevon Holland at free safety would be a priority of mine. If they can take care of a number of areas of need in FA/trade time, that wouldn't pidgeon hole Wolf into a certain position in the top 5. I would love to have the luxury of taking a unicorn like Travis Hunter because the line is somewhat taken care of beforehand.
They aren't spending 70M+ a year on OL.
 

Cellar-Door

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Right, it's a pipe dream. Ideally you come away with Stanley and fix LT. If you don't, then pivot to Trey Smith. Ideally, Caeden Wallace can take right tackle or a draft pick can.
I think Stanley, Jackson and Robinson should be the top priorities. I get the idea of Smith as BLA.... but I think this draft has a lot of guard depth (many of them tackles who'll kick inside) and your one locked in piece is a RG. I think all 3 of the tackles listed can step in and play at an acceptable level or better.
 

SMU_Sox

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@RedOctober3829 That is Matt St. Jean's plan too ;). Let's throw our friend a nod!

I don't usually disagree with @Dogman but respectfully I think you have to evaluate your FO and coaching staff. I expected struggles with Mayo but I didn't think it would be this dysfunctional. It's tough to be a CEO head coach when you have a green organization. I wanted BB gone after 2023 and was fine with the Mayo hire. I was a little more worried about Wolf and Groh. Now I am concerned across the board.

I would be fine with (after self-evaluation) they decide to:

1) Get rid of the front office but keep Mayo adding more experienced coaches to both sides of the ball and an experienced older HC to help him find his way.
2) Get rid of Mayo and Covington and most of the coaching staff but keep Wolf and Groh because at least they had a plan, they just struck out on the players to execute it and with a SSS that can happen.
3) Get rid of everyone and start over.
4) Keep everyone but add experienced staff to help Mayo and Wolf.

With AVP he is a separate issue. If they want him back he can't be calling plays and be the main architect of the offense. You could promote him to be Assistant HC and then let someone else be Offensive Coordinator.

Ultimately they can't run it back and everything should be on the table. Most guys deserve at least 2-3 years but Mayo was always a higher risk guy and he hasn't shown that he has a natural feel for any element of being a HC. He is one of the few people I would feel ok with getting rid of after 1 year. In hindsight it wasn't fair to throw him into the ring yet. He wasn't ready and he might not ever be.
 

Jinhocho

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My guess is Kraft's ego wont let him admit being wrong on Mayo. Same with Wolf especially after Wolf just drafted your new franchise QB. My sense:

Groh - FO sacrificial lamb
Covington - deserves to be fired or given new role not as DC
AVP - either returns as OC or gets fired
 

Cellar-Door

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@RedOctober3829 That is Matt St. Jean's plan too ;). Let's throw our friend a nod!

I don't usually disagree with @Dogman but respectfully I think you have to evaluate your FO and coaching staff. I expected struggles with Mayo but I didn't think it would be this dysfunctional. It's tough to be a CEO head coach when you have a green organization. I wanted BB gone after 2023 and was fine with the Mayo hire. I was a little more worried about Wolf and Groh. Now I am concerned across the board.

I would be fine with (after self-evaluation) they decide to:

1) Get rid of the front office but keep Mayo adding more experienced coaches to both sides of the ball and an experienced older HC to help him find his way.
2) Get rid of Mayo and Covington and most of the coaching staff but keep Wolf and Groh because at least they had a plan, they just struck out on the players to execute it and with a SSS that can happen.
3) Get rid of everyone and start over.
4) Keep everyone but add experienced staff to help Mayo and Wolf.

With AVP he is a separate issue. If they want him back he can't be calling plays and be the main architect of the offense. You could promote him to be Assistant HC and then let someone else be Offensive Coordinator.

Ultimately they can't run it back and everything should be on the table. Most guys deserve at least 2-3 years but Mayo was always a higher risk guy and he hasn't shown that he has a natural feel for any element of being a HC. He is one of the few people I would feel ok with getting rid of after 1 year. In hindsight it wasn't fair to throw him into the ring yet. He wasn't ready and he might not ever be.
I'm fine with 2-4, I think 1 is a bad idea. Hiring your coach before your GM usually stinks, and the only time it works is really experienced HCs who choose a GM they worked with elsewhere. Also... if you're a GM candidate.. do you want to take a job where your predecessor got one year, and you are chained to a coach who has been horrendously bad and the owner clearly has an emotional investment in him?

I think the BEST solution is 3. FIre everybody, start over using a real process like you should have last year, hire a GM, give them significant input on the coach, or hire a pre-set team. Stop pretending that the "Patriot Way" is some magic formula and that you can only hire people who were here before. Look at guys from Licht's FO in Tampa, the DET front office, BAL, KC... basically the WAS strategy of poaching a highly respected voice from a top front office (Spytek, Horitz, Borgonzi, Agnew, etc.).
 

Ralphwiggum

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I think they need a clean break from everything related to BB, the Patriot Way, etc. That’s done, it’s over. We are now 5 seasons post-Brady and we have one playoff appearance and a bunch of shitty years, including two disastrous ones back to back. Belichick is the GOAT NFL HC, but I think it is best that they start over with someone who has no connection to all of that who can build their own program.
 

DJnVa

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Knowing Maye is that dude, they may be more willing to go after slightly older WR as well. I can see why that might not have wanted to this past offseason. But now you're simply getting your legit QB weapons.
 

Salem's Lot

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I think Kraft was trying to do the Cowher to Tomlin thing and just fucked it up.
This is where I’m at as well.

He wanted Mayo to be the next coach, but figured that he had 4-5 years of him training under Bill before he retired.

Then the team won 4 games and he made the decision to fire him. But now Mayo has a $10 million clause in his contract that kicks in if he’s not named the next head coach. Kraft didn’t want to have to pay that out, and pay top dollar for a new guy to run the operation, so here we are.

Hopefully he realizes Mayo’s contract is sunk cost, and they fire everyone from Wolf and Mayo down to the interns, but I seriously doubt that Kraft is going to pony up that money.
 

Bongorific

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I'm fine with 2-4, I think 1 is a bad idea. Hiring your coach before your GM usually stinks, and the only time it works is really experienced HCs who choose a GM they worked with elsewhere. Also... if you're a GM candidate.. do you want to take a job where your predecessor got one year, and you are chained to a coach who has been horrendously bad and the owner clearly has an emotional investment in him?

I think the BEST solution is 3. FIre everybody, start over using a real process like you should have last year, hire a GM, give them significant input on the coach, or hire a pre-set team. Stop pretending that the "Patriot Way" is some magic formula and that you can only hire people who were here before. Look at guys from Licht's FO in Tampa, the DET front office, BAL, KC... basically the WAS strategy of poaching a highly respected voice from a top front office (Spytek, Horitz, Borgonzi, Agnew, etc.).
This is the way. In firing BB, they essentially fired the HC and GM at the same time. That’s hard. If they’re doing that, they need to build a more cohesive unit. Not force a HC on an interim (then permanent) GM, and bring in an offensive play caller that the HC had no prior relationship with.
 

Eric Fernsten's Disco Mustache

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So, longer-post-than-I-intended incoming.

And one that people who follow the team more closely and who have worked "inside the building" in some capacity should critique/improve on...

If we compare their records separately, the Pats (to my eyes) have a done a better job of pro scouting than college scouting. As @Cellar-Door pointed out somewhere up-thread the external free agents we signed have generally played at (Gibson, Brissett) or above (Hooper) expected value. Chuks is the obvious and painful exception here, but it's hard to know if that was bad process by the Pats or bad luck (e.g. guys applies for job but doesn't really want it).

The team's college talent assessment process, on the other hand, has had a really bad run for several years now.

In related news, my impression from past reporting has been that in the final years under Belichick the Patriots had a relatively stringent set of criteria for college scouting, compared to other NFL teams. Which isn't the same thing as having high standards. But it did mean they reportedly went into a given draft process with a significantly shorter list than other teams of people they thought "fit" with their club. IIRC the number I heard a couple of years ago was that they went into draft day with only ~75 guys that they would consider drafting. Which is part of how the team came to draft people like Cole Strange multiple rounds ahead of consensus. It's not necessarily that their assessment was that Strange was a first-round talent, per se. It could also be that they'd eliminated from consideration large numbers of players other teams had not. It's been clear for a while that the Pats have had different individual player rankings from the general consensus ('natch). And they gave serious consideration a relatively smaller subset of the players in the draft than other teams.

Belichick left in January, after the scouting for the 2024 draft was largely done. Now, people who have been on the inside should speak up if this is wrong, but I'm assuming the players we took in the April draft were all evaluated, scored, and weighed under this legacy system/process. (Because you don't orient a team of scouts to all go do something one way, and then after six months and thousands of hours of film work tell them they should then re-evaluate everyone a different way.) And while things might look different in a few years, right now it looks like once again the legacy system/process didn't serve the team well.

Now, a SOSH post search reveals that we haven't talked about him much, but the personnel move from last winter that I've been wondering about was Wolf bringing Alonzo Highsmith into a somewhat ambiguous 'senior personnel' role about a month after Belichick left. At the time it was explained by the team that Highsmith was going to be in charge of updating the way that the team evaluated college prospects. (He and Wolf have lots of old Green Bay connections and Highsmith has also been a personnel executive for the Seahawks, Browns, and the University of Miami.) I can't find any evidence that Highsmith has done any media, nor have other people talked about what he's been up to. But they did issue a press release in July that included the nugget that Highsmith had already been promoted into a more senior-- but still ambiguous-- 'personnel executive' role. And he started being listed third on the front office masthead, after Wolf and Groh.

Every organization I've seen the inside of that goes through some significant change process has people inside who are change-averse and/or adherents to the former "way we do things here". And even those who will agree 'we need to change' can start getting oppositional once the change starts happened. So, if you're an executive who wants something to change but is pulled in 17 directions, it's not unusual to bring someone in from outside to lead that change, and drag whichever people are going to make it into the new world order.

Now, I have little/no basis for the following so it's mostly speculation:
  • There is reason to think the way the team is evaluating college prospects this cycle is materially different than the last umpteen years. Whether that difference is for the better or the worse... hard tellin', not knowin'
  • To the extent that there are people in the college scouting operation who are at greater risk of losing influence and/or eventually being shown the door, I'd look to the folks who have more or less only every worked for Belichick and have no other frame of reference for what other teams do. Groh is the obvious first name that comes to mind, especially since he's pretty high up the masthead. The other two guys on the college scouting side of the house who have only ever worked for Belichick are Camren Williams, Director of College Scouting, and Richard Miller, Director of Research.
  • Wolf's decision to bring in Highsmith almost immediately after Bill left is consistent with (but not evidence for) Wolf not being a fan of the prior system and wanting to get a change process into a new system underway asap. If powerful people in the building were going to be grudging and somewhat resistant about this change-- and a college scouting operation is not something you change overnight or during the season-- than getting going ASAP would have made sense.
  • Highsmith's promotion in July is consistent with (but not evidence for) his getting more influence and approval from the powers that be, and perhaps other parties losing some internal power struggles. This is tea-leaf reading, but I can't help but note two things:
    • Since July Wolf and Highsmith are the only two people with 'Executive' in their titles. Groh gets a lot of exposure in the press, but he's one of seven Directors
    • After Belichick left there was a whole lot of job title changing, and promotions, and various people getting bigger hats. Again, it's a tea leaf, but Groh got none of that. He was made Director of Player Personnel in 2022. Since then his patron has left and he's now got Highsmith sitting in his lane, but with a more impressive job title.
Again, I don't know anything that isn't available in the press coverage and google searches

And I wonder if (a) Wolf and Groh are really as joined at the hip as is sometimes represented, along with (b) if Wolf doesn't have his own "improve the front office" plan that is somewhere between "the Patriots way without Bill" and "Fire everyone"


Edit/updates: Mods: I wonder if this part of the conversation isn't better in a separate "Hold the Wolf Pack? Evaluate the Patriots Front Office" thread
 
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Eric Fernsten's Disco Mustache

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I would be fine with (after self-evaluation) they decide to:

1) Get rid of the front office but keep Mayo adding more experienced coaches to both sides of the ball and an experienced older HC to help him find his way.
2) Get rid of Mayo and Covington and most of the coaching staff but keep Wolf and Groh because at least they had a plan, they just struck out on the players to execute it and with a SSS that can happen.
3) Get rid of everyone and start over.
4) Keep everyone but add experienced staff to help Mayo and Wolf.

With AVP he is a separate issue. If they want him back he can't be calling plays and be the main architect of the offense. You could promote him to be Assistant HC and then let someone else be Offensive Coordinator.
Can we play with these options a little?

#1 is a what the Chicago Bears have done, every 18-24 months, for a while now. Like @Cellar-Door says, it feels like a recipe for medium-term regret

#4 I think was the spirit of Wolf bringing in Highsmith; How many consiglieres is a team allowed to have?

#3 may be needed, but feels risky because you gotta entrust the franchise to someone external, which almost certainly has to be the GM and Wolf replacement. And, in effect, if you know who that is and that they'll say 'yes' then you do it. But if you don't know who that is and aren't clear if they'll say 'yes' than door #3 can cause a lot of chaos and delay any improvement for at least 2-3 years.

#2 feels the closest to solving most of the problems, but I might suggest an option #5 (or #2.5)...

5) (i) Get rid of Groh and the folks who have been leading the college scouting process, replace them with the smartest up-and-comers you can find on other teams (ii) Get rid of Covington (definitely) and Mayo (probably). The former needs to go so he can be replaced by someone who is strong at defensive game-planning, in-game corrections, and situational football. If that better DC isn't going to work under Mayo (a proposition many have tossed around, and which needs to be tested) than you have to move on from Mayo. This probably means moving on from AVP, which would be a shame, but the new HC is probably going to want their own person as OC. In any scenario, the offensive play calling next year needs to be better than AVP's this year.

I was just skimming an article that profiled one guy's take on the 25 most impressive, young, up-and-coming assistant coaches in the NFL. And it was impressive that nobody on or associated with New England's staff was on the list. Belichick may have been a GOAT at some things, but it's surprising/not-at-all-surprising that a borderline maniacal control-freak with territoriality issues and an unforgiving tendency towards grudges and grievances did a lousy job of developing younger coaching talent.

Control freaks, in executive positions, tend to attract and retain people whose most commonly-shared feature is their willingness to accommodate and facilitate the boss' controlling tendencies. But that feature is in no way correlated with talent or intelligence or other things that matter. But it's necessary for the relationship to be sustainable. So organizations led by control freaks tend to only achieve to the level that the boss can achieve himself. And whatever the boss is bad at, the organization ends up bad at. It's why over a large enough sample size organizations led by control freaks with high standards tend to lose out, over time, to organizations with high standards and also highly collaborative cultures.

The Pats need a real infusion of young talent in the coaching staff as well as in the locker room. But that's going to be a medium-to-long term project. And it starts by hiring smart people at the top, because smart people tend to want to work with and for other smart people.
 
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Oct 12, 2023
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Can we play with these options a little?

#1 is a what the Chicago Bears have done, every 18-24 months, for a while now. Like @Cellar-Door says, it feels like a recipe for medium-term regret

#4 I think was the spirit of Wolf bringing in Highsmith; How many consiglieres can a is a team allowed to have?

#3 may be needed, but feels risky because you gotta entrust the franchise to someone external, which almost certainly has to be the GM and Wolf replacement. And, in effect, if you know who that is and that they'll say 'yes' then you do it. But if you don't know who that is and aren't clear if they'll say 'yes' than door #3 can cause a lot of chaos and delay any improvement for at least 2-3 years.

#2 feels the closest to solving most of the problems, but I might suggest an option #5 (or #2.5)...

5) (i) Get rid of Groh and the folks who have been leading the college scouting process, replace them with the smartest up-and-comers you can find on other teams (ii) Get rid of Covington (definitely) and Mayo (probably). The former needs to go so he can be replaced by someone who is strong at defensive game-planning, in-game corrections, and situational football. If that better DC isn't going to work under Mayo (a proposition many have tossed around, and which needs to be tested) than you have to move on from Mayo. This probably means moving on from AVP, which would be a shame, but the new HC is probably going to want their own person as OC. In any scenario, the offensive play calling next year needs to be better than AVP's this year.

I was just skimming an article that profiled one guy's take on the 25 most impressive, young, up-and-coming assistant coaches in the NFL. And it was impressive that nobody on or associated with New England's staff was on the list. Belichick may have been a GOAT at some things, but it's surprising/not-at-all-surprising that a borderline maniacal control-freak with territoriality issues and an unforgiving tendency towards grudges and grievances did a lousy job of developing younger coaching talent.

Control freaks, in executive positions, tend to attract and retain people whose most commonly-shared feature is their willingness to accommodate and facilitate the boss' controlling tendencies. But that feature is in no way correlated with talent or intelligence or other things that matter. But it's necessary for the relationship to be sustainable. So organizations led by control freaks tend to only achieve to the level that the boss can achieve himself. And whatever the boss is bad at, the organization ends up bad at. It's why over a large enough sample size organizations led by control freaks with high standards tend to lose out, over time, to organizations with high standards and also highly collaborative cultures.

The Pats need a real infusion of young talent in the coaching staff as well as in the locker room. But that's going to be a medium-to-long term project. And it starts by hiring smart people at the top, because smart people tend to want to work with and for other smart people.
BB’s “coaching tree” isn’t lousy unless you’re considering only head coach positions

Flores is a good DC, Graham, Rob Ryan, Mangini, O’Shea, Daboll, O’Brien and others have all been solid in their own roles even if failing to take a jump. McDaniels is a fantastic OC.

Caserio, Pioli, Dimitroff, Licht were/are all excellent front office guys. Robinson has been OK

Yes his tree has failed to produce high end NFL head coaches but it’s not like he had a bunch of sycophantic dummies around him. He usually, at least until the end, had a lot of really talented and smart guys who he developed and mentored. But they are guys whose upward ascension stalled. As is the case with the vast majority of coordinators and position coaches.
 

Eric Fernsten's Disco Mustache

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BB’s “coaching tree” isn’t lousy unless you’re considering only head coach positions

Flores is a good DC, Graham, Rob Ryan, Mangini, O’Shea, Daboll, O’Brien and others have all been solid in their own roles even if failing to take a jump. McDaniels is a fantastic OC.

Caserio, Pioli, Dimitroff, Licht were/are all excellent front office guys. Robinson has been OK

Yes his tree has failed to produce high end NFL head coaches but it’s not like he had a bunch of sycophantic dummies around him. He usually, at least until the end, had a lot of really talented and smart guys who he developed and mentored. But they are guys whose upward ascension stalled. As is the case with the vast majority of coordinators and position coaches.
That's fair

We could sure have used some really talented and smart guys on the coaching staff the last several years, and going forward

We all have our time. And when it passes, it passes.
 
Oct 12, 2023
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This is where I’m at as well.

He wanted Mayo to be the next coach, but figured that he had 4-5 years of him training under Bill before he retired.

Then the team won 4 games and he made the decision to fire him. But now Mayo has a $10 million clause in his contract that kicks in if he’s not named the next head coach. Kraft didn’t want to have to pay that out, and pay top dollar for a new guy to run the operation, so here we are.

Hopefully he realizes Mayo’s contract is sunk cost, and they fire everyone from Wolf and Mayo down to the interns, but I seriously doubt that Kraft is going to pony up that money.
I don’t know that it’s even the money issue. I think Kraft has spent almost a full year pissing all over BB and was obviously confident that he could have the success of the BB era without BB.

Everything good about the dynasty could be replicated with “BB lite” and everything bad would be swept out the door.

Why he thought that, other than arrogance or perhaps a really strong dislike of and lack of respect for BB’s talents is beyond me.

Regardless, I don’t see him wanting to admit his mistake. I think we’re stuck with Mayo for a while. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see him still around in 2026 even with a crappy 2025. It will just be BB’s fault.
 

Mystic Merlin

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I don’t know that it’s even the money issue. I think Kraft has spent almost a full year pissing all over BB and was obviously confident that he could have the success of the BB era without BB.

Everything good about the dynasty could be replicated with “BB lite” and everything bad would be swept out the door.

Why he thought that, other than arrogance or perhaps a really strong dislike of and lack of respect for BB’s talents is beyond me.

Regardless, I don’t see him wanting to admit his mistake. I think we’re stuck with Mayo for a while. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see him still around in 2026 even with a crappy 2025. It will just be BB’s fault.
I could see a scenario where they fire people under Mayo to ‘make changes’, and Kraft rationalizes Mayo’s lack of competence in the first 2-3 years as Bill’s fault because he had to fire Bill earlier than Kraft anticipated and Bill didn’t groom Mayo as his replacement. Kraft has been so obsessed with grabbing for his share of the credit - specifically to the detriment of Bill and not TB12 - and reasserting control of football ops/the brand that I don’t expect him to perceive his mistakes in the near-term.
 
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