After beating the Bills in the final game of the 2024 regular season, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft announced that he had fired Jerod Mayo after only one season as the team’s head coach.
“Unfortunately, the trajectory of our team’s performances throughout the season did not ascend as I had hoped,” wrote Kraft in a release posted on X.
While the move was not completely surprising as the Patriots finished 4-13 again this season, duplicating last year’s record under Bill Belichick in his final season with the team, it’s a frustrating and maddening decision because it adds another name to the “clean-up man” list which is comprised of Black coaches hired solely to navigate a team through troubled waters only to be fired in favor of a white coach.
“I think it was unfair to coach Jerod Mayo. I mean, he never had the chance to develop as a head coach, he was just a rookie himself in that department,” said former Patriots star Rob Gronkowski. “And if you judge a coach by their first year, that’s really..not appropriate.”
Sometimes Black coaches are given a few seasons to weed out the drama, but many times they’re one and done.
It’s a long-established practice in the NFL, one that we, and especially First and Pen contributor Lou Moore, have written extensively about.
The Houston Texans were recently guilty of this practice.
Trying to recover after Bill O’Brien’s disastrous final season, where he was fired after a 0-4 start in 2020, the Texans hired former Ravens assistant head coach, David Culley, as their new head coach.
The Texans were reeling from a series of events that included the latter part of O’Brien’s tenure, a 2017 PR nightmare caused by former owner Bob McNair’s infamous “inmates running the prison” quip after players started kneeling (he apologized and then re-negged on his apology), his passing a year later, GM Rick Smith taking a leave of absence to care for his ailing wife (she passed in 2019), the rise of former EVP Jack Easterby and, finally, Deshaun Watson.
In response, the Texans hired Culley and, devoid of talent, the team finished 4-13 and he was fired at the end of the season (ironically, after O’Brien was fired, Romeo Crennel finished the season out at 4-8).
Culley was replaced by Lovie Smith, who finished 3-13-1. He was fired and replaced by current head coach Demeco Ryans, who has righted the ship.
Now, before you point to the fact that all three aforementioned coaches are Black, understand that 1) it’s rare for a Black coach to replace another Black coach in the NFL and 2) the “clean-up man” practice doesn’t mean the team or owner is racist.
Another example is Brian Flores.
In his first season, Flores (5-11) guided the Dolphins through the mess left behind by Adam Gase and became the first Dolphins coach to have back-to-back winning seasons (10-6, 9-8) since Dave Wannstedt (2000-03).
But he was replaced by Mike McDaniel, who doesn’t identify as Black.
Then there’s Steve Wilks, who was victimized by the “clean-up man” fate twice.
The first was in 2018 with the Cardinals, where he was given rookie QB Josh Rosen (could have had Lamar Jackson) and a talent-challenged roster. He finished 3-13 and was replaced by Kliff Kingsbury. Arizona then drafted Kyler Murray and added DeAndre Hopkins yet Kingsbury failed to do anything in four years (28-37-1) and was fired.
But Kingsbury had four years to build a team, time Black coaches aren’t often afforded.
In 2022, Wilks, then with the Panthers, was promoted to interim head coach after Matt Rhule’s disastrous three-year tenure (5-11, 5-12, 1-4) ended.
Wilks led them to a 6-6 record, finishing 7-10, and almost rallying Carolina to an NFC title as well. That’s after Christian McCaffrey was traded and his QBs were Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield pre-Minnesota and Tampa Bay, respectively.
Wilks deserved the job, but owner David Tepper had other ideas and hired Frank Reich, who was fired by the Colts after going 3-5-1 in 2021.
Reich led the Panthers to a 1-10 record and was finally fired.
This leads us back to Jerod Mayo.
Mayo’s hiring came after Belichick went 10-7, 8-9 and 4-13 in his final three seasons. The team was declining and didn’t add any real talent outside of promising rookie QB Drake May.
Yet Mayo, like so many other Black head coaches, was not given the chance to develop a team after finally securing a leader under center.
Ask Anthony Lynn and Wilks about that.
Even worse, as the losses mounted, Mayo was subjected to the wildly ignorant “DEI hire” taunts, something only Black people are subjected to.
“Jerod Mayo was set up,” posted Benjamin Watson on X. “Bill goes 4-13 in his last season with a roster void of top tier talent. What miracle were we expecting Jerod to perform in 17 games? If he wasn’t going to get an adequate chance to build a roster then why hire him?”
That question is even more impactful now that rumors of the Patriots wanting to hire Mike Vrabel have surfaced.
Black coaches face a tough decision regarding “clean-up man” coaching opportunities. On one hand, they understand the reality of the present and future. On the other, they don’t know when the next head coaching opportunity will present itself.
At the start of the season, there were six Black NFL head coaches- Mike Tomlin (Steelers), Todd Bowles (Buccaneers) and DeMeco Ryans (Texnas), Antonio Pierce (Raiders), Raheem Morris (Falcons) and Mayo (Patriots).
The first three are in the playoffs.
Pierce finished 4-13 but deserves another year.
Morris suffered through the decline of Kirk Cousins before finding promise in rookie Michael Pennix Jr and finishing 8-9 (Atlanta’s most wins since 2017) and Mayo was fired.
The Patriots’ victory on Sunday cost them the number one overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft (they will draft fourth), causing Mayo to suffer even more ridicule from disgruntled fans.
Regardless, Jerod Mayo deserved another year as head coach.
Instead, he fell victim to the hiring ruse of the “clean-up man” that so many other Black head coaches have experienced.
