Former Patriots QB Brian Hoyer points to the players’ support as a sign the coach isn’t the team’s major problem.
The Patriots’ uninspired loss to the Arizona Cardinals — and his bosses’ apparent reaction to it in real-time — only heated up the speculation about Jerod Mayo’s status with the team after the 2024 season.
Despite reports from the NFL’s top insiders that Mayo is largely considered safe heading into 2025, the team’s 3-11 record, Mayo’s continued on-camera blunders after games, and the potential for a brutal end to the year raise the possibility of Patriots ownership deciding to end the Mayo experiment after a year.
But former Patriots quarterback Brian Hoyer keeps bringing up an important reason for believing Mayo deserves to stick around for another season: the continued support, at least vocally, of his players.
“[Davon] Godchaux, [Jabrill] Peppers, [Mike] Onwenu, guys who are veteran leaders on the team [are] going out there and defending Jerod and basically saying like, ‘Look, he can’t go out there and play for us. We as players need to do a better job.’ And the media wants to crucify him,” Hoyer said on the latest episode of “The Quick Snap” podcast.
Brian Hoyer addresses Jerod Mayo and the Patriots problems 😳 pic.twitter.com/nYht5a6UW5
— The Quick Snap (@quicksnappod) December 17, 2024
The ex-QB did acknowledge the Patriots’ poor performance and lack of energy against the Cardinals was concerning, especially coming out of a bye week. But he also noted players have frequently held the line of needing to execute better, not needing better coaching, after losing games this season.
This is in direct contrast, Hoyer noted, to the growing internal discord within the Chicago Bears in the final weeks of Matt Eberflus’ tenure, which culminated in a disastrous Thanksgiving Day loss that finally earned him his pink slip.
Also, though Hoyer didn’t mention it, he’s seen situations go south on teams he was part of as well, including the 2023 Las Vegas Raiders led by former Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.
That includes witnessing the beginning of the end for Bill Belichick in New England after a baffling 2022 season and an abysmal 2023 that saw the all-time great coach fired at last.
“The reason Jerod’s the head coach right now is because things didn’t work out at the end of Bill [Belichick] coaching here. That’s just reality. You call it however you want. Like I see people saying, ‘Apologize to Bill.’ Well, that’s why that’s where this organization is that is because of where he led it to be, and Jerod is trying to get things going,” Hoyer said.
“It’s his first time being a head coach. The roster needs to be turned over. That’s clear, and I get it. The media wants to pin a scapegoat. But when the players are coming out and saying, ‘We need to do a better job,’ you need to listen to that.”
Of course, that’s what you might expect people who came up under Bill Belichick to do: don’t criticize coaches or players publicly. Keep things in-house. Plus, Hoyer and Andrews have played alongside Mayo, who had a well-respected career with the Patriots and has mentored several defensive players as a coach.
However, that’s one thing about the Patriots that still hasn’t reached the “catastrophically bad” threshold needed to oust Mayo: he hasn’t lost the support of the locker room yet even with their struggles on the field or Mayo’s inability to control his emotions post-game.
Plus, as Hoyer put it, the Patriots are clearly “between a rock and a hard place” when it comes to the roster, having very little top-end talent and not enough depth to bench people who might otherwise have sat in the team’s better days.
If the Pats at least keep things respectable the last few games and show renewed effort behind Mayo, he’ll most likely be the head coach regardless of the team’s outcomes in the last three games. Then again, crazier things have happened, and a turn for the worst in the team’s mentality could overrule the Krafts’ plans to give the rookie coach time to improve.
