Patriots fans chanting ‘Fire Mayo’ need to ‘know their place,’ says Jahlani Tavai
January 3, 2025
4,291
This NFL season has been tough sledding for the New England Patriots under first-year head coach Jerod Mayo. They’re 3-13 and coming off a monster 40-7 loss at home that prompted fans to start chanting “Fire Mayo.”
That didn’t sit well with Patriots linebacker Jahlani Tavai. “They’re not qualified to do what Mayo is doing, or whatever the Pats are doing,” he said Friday. “They’re fans, and I appreciate them at times, but sometimes they just got to know their place and just understand that it’s a work in progress. Rome wasn’t built in one day.”
Tavai, who said he was “frustrated” and “told a fan to quiet down in a non-polite way” during the loss, also expressed how the Patriots look at the Detroit Lions as a model for growth. They went 3-13-1 in their first season under head coach Dan Campbell in 2021, 9-8 in 2022, reached the NFC Championship Game in 2023 and are 14-2 this season. Tavai is in his fourth season with the Patriots after spending the first two seasons of his career with the Lions.
Tavai leads the Patriots with 111 combined tackles, which is his second consecutive year surpassing the 100-plus mark. He registered 10 combined tackles in the Week 17 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. New England was outgained in total yards, 428-181, during that game. What’s more, it marked the second-most points the Pats have given up this season and the sixth time this season that their opponent has scored at least 30 points.
New England’s defense is surrendering 216.7 passing yards (15th in the NFL), 131.4 rushing yards (25th), 348.7 total yards (23rd) and 25.1 points (26th) per game. Prior to succeeding Bill Belichick as head coach, Mayo was New England’s inside linebackers coach from 2019-23, which followed an eight-year career at linebacker for the Patriots.
Should the New England Patriots keep the No. 1 pick to build around Drake Maye, or draft a new QB?
The Patriots will finish the 2024 season at home against the Buffalo Bills (13-3) on Sunday.
[Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily.]
Get more from National Football LeagueFollow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
A legjobb élmény biztosítása érdekében olyan technológiákat használunk, mint a cookie-k az eszközadatok tárolására és/vagy eléréséhez. Ha beleegyezik ezekbe a technológiákba, akkor olyan adatokat dolgozhatunk fel ezen az oldalon, mint a böngészési viselkedés vagy az egyedi azonosítók. A hozzájárulás elmulasztása vagy visszavonása bizonyos funkciókat és funkciókat hátrányosan érinthet.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
