Beantown Rundown: Patriots must shake up coaching staff, but it doesn't involve firing Jerod Mayo

Yesterday at 09:32 AM

Things have not been going well for the New England Patriots as of late. With a 3-11 record, they are largely playing as expected this season, and most importantly, they appear to have found their quarterback of the future in Drake Maye. But everything around him has been lackluster, with perhaps the biggest red flag being the struggles of Jerod Mayo and his coaching staff.

After the Patriots parted ways with Bill Belichick at the conclusion of the 2023 campaign, Mayo was quickly hired by Robert Kraft to come in and replace the legendary head coach. Expectations were low, as evidenced by the fact this team has won only three games. But even then, Mayo has found ways to put himself on the hot seat less than a full year into his stint in charge of the team.

Calls for Mayo’s head are growing louder every week, and it’s not hard to see why, as the team looks uninspired on the field, and he continues to stick his foot in his mouth anytime he speaks to the media. However, firing Mayo is not the right move, but it’s clear changes to his coaching staff need to be made in order for this team to succeed moving forward.

How Patriots can fix Jerod Mayo’s coaching staff

Replacing Belichick was always going to be a tough task for Mayo given how much success he enjoyed in New England. However, the roster Belichick left behind was in shambles, and the Patriots front office did not do much to improve it over the offseason. Their only truly successful move was drafting Maye, which is obviously very important. The problem is that pretty much the rest of the roster needs to be overhauled.

Beyond that, this is Mayo’s first head coaching stint in the NFL. He’d worked on Belichick’s staff with the Patriots since 2019, but being a head coach is very different than splitting defensive coordinator duties with Steve Belichick. New England should have worked on getting Mayo some experienced assistants to support him, but that’s pretty much the exact opposite of what they did.

Let’s start at offensive coordinator, where Alex Van Pelt is the second most unpopular guy on the coaching staff besides from Mayo. Van Pelt has spent pretty much his entire coaching career working as either a quarterbacks coach or offensive coordinator, and it’s pretty easy to see why the team brought him in. With Maye in town, the team wanted a reliable voice to come in and help their quarterback grow.

Contrary to popular belief, that has been Van Pelt’s most important job this season, and it’s tough to have any complaints with what we have seen from Maye to this point. He’s looked NFL ready during his first few starts, despite playing in one of the worst offenses in the league. That’s a testament to the work of Van Pelt and quarterbacks coach T.C. McCartney.

Has Van Pelt’s playcalling left something to be desired throughout the year? Yes, but look at the unit he is working with. The offensive line and pass-catching corps are both among the worst in the league. When the line isn’t holding up in pass protection, and receivers can’t get open quickly, that shrinks the amount of plays you can call that actually have a shot of resulting in positive yardage.

While Van Pelt probably should have used Maye to convert either 3rd & 1 or 4th & 1 on a drive that stalled out at the Arizona Cardinals four-yard line in Week 15, or run a more up-tempo offense that yielded touchdowns on their final two drives, at the end of the day, he’s done what he’s needed to do with Maye. Despite calls for his head as well, he should not be fired, as he clearly has made great progress with Maye in just one season.

So if neither Mayo or Van Pelt should be fired, who is the guy that needs to get canned? That would be defensive coordinator DeMarcus Covington, who also is in his first year of working as a defensive coordinator. Covington has been with New England since 2017, and after working closely with Mayo on the defensive side of the ball for four years as the defensive line coach, he got promoted to defensive coordinator when Mayo took over at head coach and Steve Belichick bolted for the Washington Huskies in the world of college football.

Simply put, the struggles on offense were expected this year. The struggles on defense were not. For the most part, New England brought back almost the entirely same defense as they did last season, and while the Pats were truly awful on offense in 2023, their defense was one of the best in the league. This season, they have been one of the worst units in the league.

Being without guys like Ja’Whaun Bentley, Christian Barmore, and Jabril Peppers for extended periods of time certainly has not helped, but New England managed to piece together their defense all year long in 2023. This year, the unit has lacked resolve and been tasked with incredibly confusing game plans that have left fans scratching their heads.

Pairing Mayo, a first-year head coach, and Covington, a first-year defensive coordinator, was a bad move in retrospect. And while there are many areas of this team that have disappointed, their lack of defensive integrity has been arguably the worst of the bunch. Whereas the offense needs a massive influx of talent, you can make a case that the defense already has most of the pieces needed to succeed in place.

Covington should either be fired or demoted, and a veteran defensive-minded coach with head coaching experience should be brought in. While he certainly doesn’t have a lot of luster surrounding him right now, a guy like recently fired Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus fits this bill perfectly. Yes, their offense is a mess, but Chicago’s defense was rock-solid for the first half of the season, and Eberflus can tell Mayo exactly what he should not do as a head coach.

There’s a lot of other work that needs to be done this offseason in order to turn this team into a playoff contender, but maximizing what they already have at their disposal is crucial. Covington has been unable to do that, and it means that moving on from him while holding onto Mayo and Van Pelt is the best path forward when it comes to building the Patriots coaching staff.

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