List of New England Patriots head coaches

The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in Foxborough, Massachusetts. They are a member of the East Division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The team began as the Boston Patriots in the American Football League, a league which merged with the National Football League before the 1970 season.^[1]

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]

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.