FOXBORO — Robert Kraft stepped up to the podium and took accountability for Jerod Mayo’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it tenure as Patriots head coach that lasted just under one year.

“I’m going to be very brief here and say this whole situation is on me,” Kraft said Monday to begin his opening statement about firing Mayo. “I feel terrible for Jerod, because I put him in an untenable situation. I know that he has all the tools as a head coach to be successful in this league. He just needed more time before taking the job.”

Mayo was fired just over an hour after Sunday’s 23-16 win over the Bills in the Patriots’ season finale. Kraft said that Mayo, who was selected by the Patriots in the first round of the 2008 NFL Draft and played eight seasons in New England, took the news “like a man.”

“Look, it was one of the more difficult things I’ve had to do in my life, because I had such affection for him, and I believe in him and and I really do believe he will go on, and as he gets more experience, he’ll be successful,” Kraft said. “It was not easy. He was a gentleman and accepted it that way.”

Mayo spent five years as a Patriots linebackers coach before being promoted to head coach. There was a succession plan written into his contract that he would become the Patriots’ next head coach after the team parted ways with Bill Belichick. The team fired Belichick last January, so the Patriots were able to name Mayo as their next head coach without going through an interview process last year.

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It wasn’t a rash decision after Sunday’s win, which also knocked the Patriots down from No. 1 overall in the 2025 NFL Draft to the fourth slot. Kraft also said that his son, team president Jonathan Kraft, has been involved in all business decisions over the last 30 years.

“This whole situation evolved, but I’d say, over the last month I went back and forth,” Kraft said. “And I don’t know, in my life and my business, I make certain decisions. I know when it’s right, and it just happened, and it was very hard, because the personal relationship I feel for Jerod and the human being he is, and I felt guilty I put him in that position, but we’re moving on.”

Kraft started to get concerned with the trajectory of his team around the midpoint of the season.

The Patriots beat the Bengals in Week 1 before going on a six-game losing streak. They won two of three games between Weeks 8 and 10 before another six-game losing streak. Overall, the team finished 4-13 with their Week 18 win over the Bills, who played mostly backups and did not appear to take winning seriously in the contest.

“In the important decisions in my life, I’ve always said I measure nine times and cut once, and this was one of those situations,” Kraft said of firing Mayo. “I guess the main thing for me is I felt we regressed. The high point of everything for me was winning in the Cincinnati game, and then in mid-season, I just think we started to regress.”

Kraft said he felt like the team wasn’t going in the right direction, and he didn’t want to go through another losing season in 2025.

It became clear over the last month that the Patriots were playing their worst football of the season down the stretch. Coming out of their Week 14 bye, the Patriots were blown out 30-17 by the Cardinals in Arizona. They were competitive in a 24-21 loss to the Bills in Week 16 but were trounced by the Chargers 40-7 in Week 17.

That was Mayo’s last chance to show how his team would respond to real competition.

Kraft went on to say that the situation felt untenable because he doesn’t like losing, and he doesn’t like the way his team was losing. The Patriots did lose six one-score games, but they also lost by double-digits in seven contests while playing one of the NFL’s easiest schedules.

Fan interest also clearly waned over the last two weeks of the season. The team was booed and fans chanted “fire Mayo” during the Patriots’ Week 17 loss to the Chargers in a half-full Gillette Stadium.

Fans were mostly apathetic and actively rooting for the team to lose Week 18 to the Bills so they could garner the No. 1 pick in the draft.

Kraft said he understood fan reaction.

“Since the day we bought this team, and I realized what a privilege it was and how lucky we were as a family, that this is the only business we’re involved in, where I see ourselves, we don’t own this team,” Kraft said. “It’s owned by the fans of this region, and we’re custodians of a very special asset of the community, and that’s why that helps me try to make decisions that if it was just personal, it would be different.”

Mayo did not know before Sunday’s game that he would be fired, according to Kraft. The team owner said he did not instruct the coaching staff how to handle Sunday’s game with the No. 1 overall pick on the line.

The Patriots will now “move fast” in their search for a new head coach but plan to “interview as many people as we can that we think can help us get to that position that we want to be in.”

The team has already reached out to Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson for an interview request. Ex-Titans head coach and former Patriots linebacker Mike Vrabel is also expected to be a candidate.