If You're Not First, You're Last

Here's Shank on the firing of New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo:

In Jerod Mayo’s case, nice guys really do finish last

Weep not for nice guy Jerod Mayo. This wasn’t his fault.

Smart, sensible, stoic, Mayo will be a coveted commodity for many decades as an NFL assistant coach, commentator, or just about anything he pursues. He may become an NFL head coach again, perhaps a good one. He is only 38 and it’s all ahead of him.

Mayo was fired as head coach of the Patriots, less than two hours after the hapless Patriots beat the playoff-bound Buffalo Bills, 23-16, in New England’s season-finale “Stupor Bowl” at Gillette Stadium Sunday afternoon.

It was a “win” that cost the Patriots dearly, dropping them from first to fourth in the NFL’s annual April meat market. The hollow victory supplied the perfect coda for Mayo’s disastrous single season as Patriot head coach:

The 2024 Patriots: even when they win, they lose.

It’s fair to state that Mayo’s disastrous one-year reign was an ownership blunder, residue of Bob Kraft’s considerable hubris and pain from the final years of Bill Belichick’s quarter-century at the helm. Mayo should never have been handed the job in the first place and likely was promoted out of sheer loyalty to the boss. After 25 years of perceived disrespect from Belichick, Kraft wanted a head coach who was polite and beholden to the boss. The result was abysmal. Mayo was wildly inexperienced and unprepared for the lofty position.

Another Patriots column for which the real primary target is Bob Kraft.

DHL Dan CCXXXV - The Axe Falleth?

Just an hour before Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo became former Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo, Shank was thinking ownership will do nothing:

The Patriots need to do right by their fans and fire Jerod Mayo, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering if Route 1 will be easy to navigate Sunday . . .

▪ Welcome to the Stupor Bowl. Sunday in Foxborough we get the 13-3 Buffalo Bills, a playoff-bound team with absolutely nothing to gain against a 3-13 Patriots team that has much to lose by winning.

Ugh. Wake me when it’s over.

When this finale mercifully concludes, Bob and Jonathan Kraft — visible this season only when network pals featured them rattling jewelry from a cozy midfield suite — need to do right by fans and fix their mess of a football team.

Regrettably, I can pretty much guess how this is going to go: Bob will send out his now-annual letter of apology, telling fans they deserve better and promising a better product. The Krafts will feebly fire a coordinator or two, Bob will reluctantly take a few questions, and announce that Jonathan is busy elsewhere at a very important corrugated cardboard meeting.

I'm getting the feeling Shank doesn't like the Kraft family a whole lot...

DHL Dan CCXXXIV - On The Hot Seat?

There's a great deal of speculation about the future for first year head coach Jerod Mayo. Even with a current 3 - 13 record, Shank thinks he'll stick around because of Bob Kraft:

Bob Kraft is stubborn, so it’s doubtful that he fires Jerod Mayo after this dismal season, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while roasting chestnuts and listening to Mitch Miller carols . . .

▪ Any chance Bob Kraft fires Jerod Mayo at the end of this terrible season? Doubt it.

Kraft is stubborn and unlikely to admit he acted hastily and erred hiring Mayo one day after firing Bill Belichick in January.

We all know Mayo inherited a terrible roster. This sorry season has been torpedoed by poor drafts, second-tier assistant coaches, and the team’s failure to spend.

Every coach deserves more than a one-year tryout, right? Bill Parcells wasn’t let go when his first Patriots team started 1-11. Belichick was retained after going 5-11. Both got plenty of slack.

Bring Back Rod Rust?

With the New England Patriots losing on Sunday, it brings back some bad memories for Shank:

Jerod Mayo’s powerless, flat Patriots channeling every bit of the bad old days

GLENDALE, Ariz. — These are games we mocked not so long ago: A 3-10 team against a 6-7 team in mid-December. A couple of Tomato Cans duking it out in a quiet stadium while Football America was riveted to Bills at Lions (48-42, Buffalo) on CBS.

If you were home in New England, forced to watch Patriots-Cardinals ahead of the true Game of the Week, too bad. Instead of a possible prelude to this year’s Super Bowl, you were hostage to the Dumpster Fire In The Desert. It was just like the bad old days of 20th century Patriot-watching.

Under the robin’s egg blue skies of State Farm Stadium’s open roof, the Cardinals pantsed the moribund Patriots, 30-17, Sunday. Jerod Mayo’s 11 dropped to 3-11, clearing the way for 3-14 and another top three pick in this spring’s draft.

New England showed little sign of life, and Bob and Jonathan Kraft looked pretty unhappy in their midfield thrones. Maybe deciding to hire Mayo five years ago because he demonstrated good manners on a trip to Israel wasn’t such a great idea.

When local teams are at their worst, Shank's writing comes alive. Funny how that works...

No, You're The Soft One!

Now that the 2024 New England Patriots are firmly below .500 for the season, Shank the Knife returns to his Patriots bashing form:

Jerod Mayo once called his Patriots soft, but he is coaching in a similar fashion

Butch Hobson. Dave Lewis. Rod Rust. M.L. Carr.

Soft team?

How about “soft coaching”?

Patriots rookie sideline boss Jerod Mayo made headlines last month when he termed his team “soft” after a 32-16 loss, its sixth consecutive defeat, against Jacksonville in London.

Highly insulting. There’s not much worse you can say about an NFL player or team. “Soft” is a highly charged word in professional sports, especially football. It’s like telling a Fox News host that he or she is “woke.”

Inspired by the insult and the play of rookie quarterback Drake Maye, the rebuilding Patriots won two of their next three games. They might have won three in a row but were restrained by their hesitant head coach in Tennessee when he ordered a point-after kick after the Patriots cut the Titans’ lead to a single point at the end of regulation.

It's a bit early with the Rod Rust / M.L. Carr comparisons, isn't it? And Shank's then beamoning other people on 'insulting' remarks?