A year ago around this time, Patriots owner Robert Kraft was watching a former player turned hand-selected head coach round out a season that was underwhelming at best and foreboding at worst. Jerod Mayo struggled at the podium with a handful of unforced verbal errors and, in the team’s second to last game of the season, was walloped 40–7 by the playoff-bound Chargers. The loss illustrated the gap between where New England was and where it needed to go.
Kraft was willing to fall on the sword, an embarrassing proposition given that Mayo was chief among Kraft’s reasons to move on from the legendary Bill Belichick. A year later, his team is back atop the AFC East and will host a playoff game next weekend.
