Bill Simmons Rips Patriots On ‘Dark, Dumb Day’ After Losing No. 1 Pick

Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, is going to go down as one of the most impactful days in the history of the New England Patriots. At this point, it’s hard to see it going down as positive.

A lot happened Sunday. New England entered the day with the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Jerod Mayo and the coaching staff turned over the keys to third-string quarterback Joe Milton, but the Patriots still beat a Buffalo Bills team resting all of its key players ahead of the NFL playoffs. As a result, the Patriots fell from the first pick to No. 4. After the game, New England announced Mayo was fired after his first and only season as Patriots coach.

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, who called the entire day “incompetent” in the moment, had some even harsher criticisms during his Sunday night podcast.

“When I think of the dark, dumb days of the team since I became a Patriots fan with Jim Plunkett and Mack Herron and everybody when I was 4 years old, this has to be in the top eight or nine,” Simmons said on “The Bill Simmons Podcast” on The Ringer. “It’s just a complete organizational collapse, disgrace, it made no sense. It made no sense as it was happening. Every other team — the (expletive) Chiefs knew how to tank, right? …We had the first pick and now we have the fourth pick. We move back three spots every single round.”

Simmons also made the same point others have raised about the timing of everything. If the Patriots were leaning toward firing Mayo and truly believed losing Sunday — and getting the No. 1 pick — was the best-case scenario, did they put that at risk by letting Mayo coach?

“The thing that kills me is they fired the coach right after the game,” he said. “They knew they were doing that for at least a week. …They’re trying to coach for their jobs. You have to get rid of those guys if you know you’re going to get rid of them after the game. Why not get rid of them before the game? Why not put this position in the hands of people who care about the big, long-term picture of the franchise instead of trying to win the game?”

Like many Patriots fans, Simmons essentially summed up Sunday’s calamity as a fitting end to one of the most embarrassing seasons in franchise history.

“It just speaks to what this whole season was like,” Simmons lamented. “Owners who don’t know what they’re doing, a front office that doesn’t know what they’re doing and a coach that had no idea what he was doing and contradicted himself over and over again, starting in August when he was like ‘It’s gonna be a competition for this job.’ Then, he starts (Jacoby) Brissett even though (Drake) Maye was better and then four weeks in he was like ‘Maye was playing better, so he’s gotta start.’ …It was just contradictions left and right, and he deserved to be fired.”

Simmons and Patriots fans now sit and wait to see who will be the third coach in as many seasons while looking ahead to who could be left at No. 4 in the draft.