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They also have amazing long-sleeved dress shirts, stretch chinos, and lux-quarter zips. Whether you're back to the office or looking to elevate your weekend looks, you've got to check them out. Collars & Co.com. Use code TIKI for 15% off your first order. Plane rides in the NFL are typically quiet after losses. Coaches and execs sit up front, players toward the back. But in a move that surprised some at the front of the plane after such a lopsided loss, according to a team source, Mayo, the team's first-year head coach who had been handpicked by owner Robert Kraft to succeed Bill Belichick, left his spot near the front and went back to where some players had gathered to play cards, choosing to hang out there while his assistants watch filmed. On a night when the frustration over terrible performance had some wondering if their jobs were about to be in jeopardy, it was surprising to at least one person at the front of the plane to see the head coach mingling with players in such a casual way. "Look, there are a lot of ways to do the job," a team source who was on the plane said. "It's not that your odds was definitely wrong, but I can't say I've seen that before." This one of the eye-popping pieces that came out today in a piece from the Athletic, the sports arm of, of course, the New York Times and beyond, that was written by our next guest here on WEI's Evening Program with Fitzy and Lyons, the New England Patriots writer for the Athletic. You can follow him on the socials @ChadGraph. Chad Graft joins us on the show. Chad, thanks for making the little time tonight, buddy. Of course, thanks for having me. How are you guys doing? We're doing better than we were prior to Sunday's game and the subsequent dismissal because obviously some of the hot air has been led out of the balloon, some of the toxicity has been purged from Pat's nation, but there's still there's still a lot of prickly feelings, there are still a lot of big questions, and there are still a lot of big issues. And I feel like your piece today really kind of pulled back the curtain a little further. I think like people were expecting a piece like this Chad to a degree. It wasn't a hit piece by any stretch of the imagination, but it was very telling as to like kind of how much it tracked with how people felt about Gerard Mayo's first year, how he tried so hard, whether it was on his own or an ownership edict to be anti-bell chicken, how he tried so hard to be relatable, how he still almost felt more like a player than a coach and look at what it ultimately led to. What was the most surprising thing you heard when you were putting this together from the sources that spoke with you? Yeah, I mean, I think I what my takeaway might have been just kind of feeling bad for him and the spot that he was put into and the situation that he was left with where his mentor, the guy who that he was, you know, conceivably should have been able to lean on through the toughest times had stopped talking to him and wasn't interested in chatting. The attempts to fill out the staff was so difficult. And so I think one of the things that I kept coming back to was, and I think we saw this with the quarterback, although this is very different situation, but it's just so hard to be the guy after the guy. Like, you know, even if there was Kim Newton as a buffer, Matt Jones was basically supposed to be the next guy after Tom Brady, and obviously that didn't work out. And I think we're seeing that it's probably pretty easier to be Drake May having had that gap since then. And so I think for the next coach, I mean, I'm sure we can get into some of that, but I'm sure the next coach will have an easier time where everything that Gerard did, in part because of his past with Bill, but also just because he was the guy following him, everything was viewed through the lens of what Bill would have done in that situation, how he would have handled something. And so, you know, I kind of feel for how difficult that must have been where every decision is constantly compared to Bill Belichick. Chad, I want to ask you about the succession plan part of your article today. In it, you write that they had an agreement in writing with Mayo and Belichick that Belichick would leave after 2025. Mayo would take over. That would give Belichick time to mentor him. Now, there's been some other reporting previous to yours that either Belichick wasn't fully aware of the succession plan or he knew it, but he wasn't on board with it. From the sources you talked to, was this something that Bill Belichick was in favor of? Was he not in favor of it? Was he blindsided by it? Where was he on that and how did that affect their relationship? I think it was a true compromise where, hey, Bill, you want this wins record so bad, here's your chance to do it. And so, you know, that's essentially what he got out of it. What the Patriots got out of it was a succession plan that had everything gone well or gone better, would have prepped them to have the next coach, you know, ready to go and have a successful career. And so, it was a compromise and one that they hoped with each of us giving a little bit and receiving a little bit. Maybe this will work. And instead, it seems like neither one got what they wanted. Bill didn't get what he wanted. Robert didn't get what he wanted with the mentoring of Gerard. Gerard didn't get what he wanted left with a less than fair shake of things. So, it was a compromise that I think at its best should have helped everybody. But the unfortunate part of it is that it ended up helping nobody. So Chad, I mean, you know, with them coaching for their lives down the stretch and the stench of failure becoming almost too great for the crafts to handle and all the chanting and the negativity, like I had mentioned before, that was just that was a growing din of discontent and disapproval from the fans everywhere that you could possibly see. It almost felt, I mean, I know it was a big topic even at the stadium on Sunday in the media room all over the stadium. Is it going to happen? Will Robert Kraft actually do this almost unthinkable act? And I think he has, there is a certain degree of sympathy that people feel for Gerard Mayo because he was kind of set up to fail, not getting, and you go into great detail in the piece as well with, you know, no, he has no Ernie Adams. He had no Matt Patricia. He had no trusted lieutenants or anyone the way Bill did. But did you or anyone you spoke with think it was going to happen so swiftly, like not even waiting for the proverbial Black Monday, but an hour and 10 minutes after the final game? Yeah, I don't know. I think that that's worth a lesson as we kind of spin this forward to and think about what is going to happen is that Robert Kraft is pretty decisive. He says a lot that he's going to measure nine times and cut once. And I think there's some of that. But also, when he makes up his mind, he doesn't really drag his feet. We saw that with Gerard. We saw that with, you know, go back 25 years to the hiring of Bill Belichick was similar. And so, you know, I think once he knew it would have been almost more uncomfortable to just sit around and say congratulations to him on the win after the game on Sunday. And so I wasn't totally stunned by that. I would imagine that this coaching search is probably going to move quicker than most as well. Like there are now six openings. And my guess would be that the Patriots will be the first team to fill their head coach vacancy. I think things are about to ramp up in a big, big way over the next 48 hours. And then after that, it's decision time. And here we go. Which of these Detroit Lions coordinators that you picking? Are you picking Mike Ravel? And so it's going to be a really interesting next 48 hours for the New England Patriots. So Chad, it kind of sounds like you think there will be a new head coach of the Patriots by this weekend. Is that fair to say? Or do you think it could go longer than that? I think it'll go longer than that. I think it'll probably be into next week. And I think a lot of it, frankly, just depends on how these interviews go. So they're interviewing both of these Detroit Lions coordinators, Aaron Glenn and Ben Johnson, the defense of an offensive coordinator, respectively. I might understand these. Both of those are going to happen on Friday, but they can't interview them in person until January 20th. So I think they'll reset after this round of interviews Thursday and Friday, regroup Saturday, Sunday. And if it's Ravel, then boom, I think it's go time and they're going to have their guy early next week. If Ben Johnson or Aaron Glenn do enough in their interviews, or if Ravel doesn't do enough in his, then I think that's where the process would slow down. And maybe they would drag it till one more week on top of that. But my guess and sense is that Ravel is the front runner. And so it would probably take something going wrong over those next 48 hours in the interview process for him, for him not to be the head coach of the Patriots next week. We're speaking with Chad Graff, the Patriots writer for the athletic here on WEI's Evening Show with Fitzy and Lions. His piece that ran in the athletic today, a startling revelation on many failures and aspects of Gerard Mayo's tumultuous one-in-done season coaching the Patriots. Chad, another component of your piece that shed some light on a situation that had been kind of murky, I think, for a lot of fans and even many of us in the media prior to today was the Steve Belichick portion of it, where you talked about how Belichick seemed like Steve Belichick wanted to stay. This also tracks what things I had heard but couldn't fully substantiate as well, that he didn't really want to be demoted, that I think he was probably looking to be named defensive coordinator because he and Mayo from what I heard were really good friends. And they worked together hand-in-hand for half a decade, and now all of a sudden Mayo gets the bump to head coach. And I can kind of see how it would have been an awkward situation for Mayo. You mentioned earlier, like everything Mayo did was framed through the lens of, well, this is how you did it and this is the way Bill Belichick would have done it. Well, what could have been weirder for him than having Bill Belichick's son be the defensive coordinator and say, oh, well, the defense is only good because Belichick's funneling game plans to his kid on the sideline. Exactly, and kind of the mystery of it that I still haven't solved and still don't really know is, how did that Steve and Gerard relationship deteriorate? They were legitimately such good friends and part of the reason that Gerard even got into coaching and why he enjoyed his time in 2022 and 2023 so much was because of that relationship. And so I was kind of shocked, I think, in a lot of people were that Steve Belichick was not named the defensive coordinator. That kind of felt like a shoe in, but given how toxic things had gotten with Bill and Gerard, maybe he looked at it as I just can't, you know, I just can't have a Belichick basically be my defensive caller. I don't even know who my offensive coordinator is. I don't even know what my special team's coordinator is. I don't know, basically the whole offensive staff, like he was already dealing with so many unknowns that my guess is he looked at defensive coordinator like, I just need somebody who I know is 110% rock solid for me. And that was Demargis Covington. The mystery in all of this will be whether Steve would have done more with that defense or not because obviously the defense was a big reason for their shortcomings this season. But, you know, it's an interesting what could have been or what might have been had things been different talking with Chad graph of the athletic Chad. What's the Elliot wolf factor in all this? Because he had some quotes over the last week about how he thought Jalen Polk would be a plug and play starter. I think a lot of people myself included looked at that as kind of a shot towards the coaching staff for not properly developing and utilizing him. Do you think wolf looks at it like, Hey, these coaches just weren't up to the job and they didn't develop the good players I have, or is it Elliot Wolf was not up to the job and he didn't build a good enough roster in the time he had there because it seems like he at least will play a role in this coaching search going forward. Yeah, I think the front office remains pretty confident despite my skepticism and lots of other skepticism that their draft class is going to be just fine. They point out that a lot of Packers wide receivers have had slow starts and it hasn't gone great for them. So they they don't write off Jalen Polk. Again, I've got my own share of skepticism where I would probably disagree and think, you know, maybe we've seen enough that you could. I think we all define the word slow. I think we all have different definitions of the word slow then holy smokes. Well, and that's what's crazy is like, it's not that he's off to the slow start that Devonta Adams was Devonta Adams's slow start was like 400 yards. So we're talking about historically slow to the point where if Jalen Polk does develop into a good wide receiver, he'll be a total historical outlier like with no peers, no company. So, you know, I don't know if the front office is just saying that or not, but they say that they're still confident that they're able to pick and identify good players and that the draft class two years from now will look a lot better than it does right now. Chad, so follow up, John. Yeah. So I wanted to ask you, based on the front office as well, and their confidence, Bill Belichick said this week that he was on the same page with ownership and scouting until his last four years in New England. Do you have any more insight on kind of what he meant by that? Like, were there specific people in mind that he was like, Hey, these are craft plants or these are people that I'm not on the same page with, and they led me to losing my job? Do you have any insight at all on just what he meant or who he meant by those comments? Well, so I think for starters, you know, you got to go back to, of course, Tom Brady leaving at that point and craft being frustrated that they weren't able to keep that union together any longer and craft feeling like, Hey, I've done everything in my power to to keep this and to keep them. And so definitely, I'm sure some frustration on that part is where it starts. But then I think it's important noting that part of Belichick's downfall, the story of the end of his career is that he was already such an insular coach who wouldn't go, you know, hire people that he didn't know or seek out things like that. And so an already insular coach kind of withdrew further. And it became only the people that have been around me for 10 years, and I can trust implicitly. Those are the only people that I'm, you know, really dealing with, which is how you end up with. Mathematician Joe Judge's offensive coordinators one year. And then apparently, you know, things get so bad with Bill O'Brien that he doesn't want to do a Bill O'Brien by the end. And so, you know, I just think the story of a guy who was constantly looking over his shoulder for somebody who might stab him in the back, and then it ended up with so few people in front of him that, you know, he was kind of done in a little bit by such a small, small staff. Well, seeing as we've been waiting through the waters of the apocalyptic tone and feel at Gillette and around the New England Patriots, let's leave the fans with a little something to look forward to, or at least maybe get their hopes up. You also put out a tweet today, Tyree Kael to the Patriots at by Mike Jones collected some mock trade offers and played dolphins GM to find a landing spot for the wide receiver. I can't imagine that you would think that anybody, whether it's a Luftenant with Mike Vreibault, someone else coming in playing GM Elliott Will for more would trade for him. But is there anybody you could see the Patriots maybe making a trade for it to try to bolster this offense in the off-season considering how lethargic it was this year? And they're going to have to. And so that story comes about we do those at the athletic periodically when somebody prominent wants a trade. It's kind of, hey, you know, just pretend you're the GM that team you cover. Would you put in a trade? And I kind of said a couple of people like, no, I don't think the Patriots would, but also they can't afford to not be in on every wide receiver. Like they they have to be in on every wide receiver. So that's that's kind of why I threw the Patriots in there of like, man, none of this fits, feels right, makes sense. This is not the person you go target for Drake May. And yet the wide receiver situation is bad enough that you have to. So I think anybody that there's a trade rumor for will be a target of the Patriots. And then that, you know, is probably highlighted by the free agency class and T Higgins where my guess is the Patriots are willing to do just about anything to plant T Higgins this year. You can give him a follow at Chad Graph G R A F F and of course you can read his New England Patriots and NFL coverage in the athletic chat. Thanks for some time, man. Great piece today. Please try to as I've advised every other media member I've seen in person online or like yourself both. Just get a little just try to take a break if you can take a breath, look forward to that, look forward to taking a little time off. But you know that with the coaching changes in a wild off season to come, we're barely going to be able to catch our breath. So thanks for the time, man. Is your team at work feeling a little disconnected? Maybe the workflow is not flowing. Try Confluence by Atlassian. Confluence is the connected workspace where teams can create, organize and deliver work like never before. In Confluence, teams can whiteboard their vision for any project, easily create or access the relevant pages and resources they need and discover important contexts they might not even know they need. Plus, AI helps teams jumpstart brainstorm, organize information and connect workflows. So teams can move efficiently and create alignment with ease. 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Nick "Fitzy" Stevens and Jon Lyons sit down with Chad Graff from The Athletic to dive deeper into his latest article, offering behind-the-scenes insights on Jerod Mayo's firing and what the Krafts are expecting from Eliot Wolf moving forward.
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