There have been 15 head coaches for the Patriots franchise. Lou Saban became the first coach of the Patriots in 1960, although he was fired part way through their second season.[2] The 15th and current head coach is Jerod Mayo, who was hired in 2024.[3] Mayo replaced longtime head coach Bill Belichick, who led the team for more regular season games (387), post-season games (41) and complete seasons (24) than any other head coach. His 266 wins with the Patriots are far and away the most in franchise history, more than five times those of runner-up Mike Holovak. Belichick also led the team to nine of their eleven Super Bowl appearances, winning six of them. Holovak, Raymond Berry and Bill Parcells all led the Patriots to league championship games, with only one (Holovak) failing to reach the Super Bowl. Five Patriots head coaches, Holovak, Chuck Fairbanks, Berry, Parcells, and Belichick, have been named coach of the year by at least one major news organization. Additionally, Raymond Berry and Bill Parcells are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, with Berry being inducted in 1973, and Parcells in 2013.[4][5]
Bill Belichick was the most successful head coach in franchise history, leading the team to six Super Bowl championships in his 24-year tenure.
Twice in Patriots history there were "interim" head coaches. In 1972, John Mazur resigned with five games left in the season.[6]Phil Bengtson was named as the interim head coach for the rest of the season, during which he only won one game, and he was not made the permanent coach the next year. In 1978, head coach Fairbanks secretly made a deal to leave the team to coach the University of Colorado Buffaloes while he was still coaching the Patriots. Team owner Billy Sullivan suspended Fairbanks for the final game of the regular season, stating "You cannot serve two masters," and Ron Erhardt and Hank Bullough took co-head coaching responsibilities for that game.[7] Fairbanks was reinstated when the team qualified for the playoffs, and he lost the first playoff game, his last for the Patriots. Since Dick MacPherson, the Patriots have had only 4 coaches in 32 seasons.
↑ Ron Erhardt's record includes one game where he shared head coaching duties with Hank Bullough during Chuck Fairbanks 1978 suspension. His first official year as head coach of the Patriots was 1979.
The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. The Patriots compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The Patriots play home games at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which is 22 miles (35 km) southwest of Boston. The franchise is owned by Robert Kraft, who purchased the team in 1994. As of 2023, the Patriots are tied for the third most valuable sports team in the world and have sold out every home game since 1994.
Duane Charles "Bill" Parcells is a former American football coach who served as a head coach in the National Football League (NFL) for 19 seasons. He came to prominence as the head coach of the New York Giants from 1983 to 1990, where he won two Super Bowl titles. Parcells was later the head coach of the New England Patriots from 1993 to 1996, the New York Jets from 1997 to 2000, and the Dallas Cowboys from 2003 to 2006. Nicknamed "the Big Tuna", he is the only NFL coach to lead four different franchises to the playoffs and three to a conference championship game.
William Stephen Belichick is an American sports analyst and football coach. Widely regarded as one of the greatest head coaches of all time, he holds numerous coaching records, including the record of most Super Bowl wins (six) as a head coach, all with the New England Patriots, along with two more during his time as the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants, for a record eight combined total Super Bowl victories as coach and coordinator. A renowned American football historian, Belichick is often referred to as a "student of the game" with a deep knowledge of the intricacies of each player position. During his tenure with the Patriots, Belichick was a central figure as the head coach and de facto general manager during the franchise's dynasty from 2001 to 2019.
Romeo Crennel is a former American football coach, who was the senior advisor for football performance for the Houston Texans of the National Football League (NFL). A former long-time coaching assistant to Bill Parcells, Crennel served as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns from 2005 to 2008 and the Kansas City Chiefs in 2012, as well an assistant coach for six NFL teams and four collegiate teams. He has over 50 years of coaching experience, which has included consistently being employed as a coach for all but two seasons since 1970, only taking the 2009 and 2013 seasons off following both of his tenures as a permanent head coach. He has five Super Bowl wins as assistant coach, two with the New York Giants and three with the New England Patriots.
Scott Pioli is an American football executive who most recently worked as the assistant general manager for the Atlanta Falcons. He was an NFL analyst for NBC Sports' Football Night in America, NBC Sports Network's Pro Football Talk, Sirius XM NFL Radio and the NFL Network. He previously served as a front office executive for the Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens, New York Jets, New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs. Pioli served as the director – and later vice president – of player personnel for the Patriots from 2001 to 2008 when the franchise won three Super Bowl championships.
This article contains an in-depth explanation of the history of the New England Patriots, a professional American football team that competes in the National Football League (NFL).
Charles Leo Fairbanks was an American football coach who was a head coach at the high school, college and professional levels. He served as the head coach at the University of Oklahoma from 1967 to 1972 and at the University of Colorado from 1979 to 1981, compiling a career college record of 59–41–1 (.589). Fairbanks was also the head coach for the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL) from 1973 to 1978, amassing a record of 46–41 (.529), and for the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League (USFL) in 1983, tallying a mark of 6–12.
Ronald Peter Erhardt was an American football coach at both the collegiate and professional levels. From 1979 to 1981 he served as head coach of the National Football League (NFL)'s New England Patriots.
Thomas "Pepper" Johnson is an American football coach and former linebacker who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, the first seven of which were for the New York Giants. He won two Super Bowls with the Giants before playing for the Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions and New York Jets.
The New England Patriots generally run a modified Erhardt-Perkins offensive system and a Fairbanks-Bullough 3–4 defensive system, though they have also used a 4–3 defense and increased their use of the nickel defense.
The 1984 New England Patriots season was the franchise's 15th season in the National Football League and 25th overall. The Patriots finished the season with a record of nine wins and seven losses, and finished second in the AFC East Division.
The 1997 New England Patriots season was the franchise's 28th season in the National Football League (NFL) and the 38th overall. They finished the season with a 10–6 record and a division title but lost in the playoffs to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The 2000 season was the New England Patriots' 31st in the National Football League (NFL) and their 41st overall. They finished with a 5–11 record and in last place in the division. It would be the first season the franchise would have involving quarterback Tom Brady. He would play 20 seasons as a Patriot, a franchise record. However, he wasn't given the starting job until next season. This was Tom Brady's only season on a team with a losing record until 2022, and the only time that his team lost twice to the same AFC East team during the regular season.
Matthew Edward Patricia is an American football coach known for his career in the National Football League (NFL). He served fifteen non-consecutive seasons as an assistant coach with the New England Patriots, including six seasons as the defensive coordinator from 2012 to 2017. During Patricia's tenure as defensive coordinator, the Patriots won two Super Bowls and allowed the fewest points in 2016. Patricia also served as the Patriots' offensive playcaller in 2022.
The Jets–Patriots rivalry is a rivalry between the New York Jets and New England Patriots of the National Football League. The teams both play in the AFC East. They have been in the same division since the two teams' inception in 1960 in the American Football League, and have played each other at least twice a year since then.
A Football Life is an American documentary series of 116 episodes, developed by NFL Films and aired on NFL Network that documents the lives of select National Football League (NFL) players, coaches, owners, and teams. Friends, teammates, family members and other players and coaches associated with the subjects are interviewed.
The Giants–Patriots rivalry is a National Football League (NFL) rivalry between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. The all-time series is currently tied, 7–7. The two teams met twice in the Super Bowl, both won by the Giants. They play in different conferences, and thus they only meet once every four regular seasons and at least once every eight seasons at each team's home stadium, occasionally in the preseason, sometimes more often if they meet in the Super Bowl or share a common finish position in their respective divisions in the year before the 17th game. This rivalry sparked debates among sports fans in Boston and New York City, evoking comparisons to the fierce Yankees–Red Sox rivalry in Major League Baseball.
Complementary football is a theory in American football that states the performance, or lack thereof, in one of the three phases of the game by a team can subsequently alter the game's flow in the following possessions, so the three units of the team must operate in synergy as a collective for the best chance to win.
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