Less than a year after hiring Jerod Mayo, right, to be the Patriots’ coach, owner Robert Kraft is again looking for a coach. The Patriots went 4-13 in Mayo’s only season. Steven Senne/Associated Press

Here’s a history lesson for New England Patriots fans who are convinced the team is currently at its lowest point.

In 1990, the Patriots went 1-15. They ranked last in the NFL in scoring, averaging just over 11 points per game. They scored 10 or fewer points in 10 of 16 games, including seven times in the last eight weeks of the season. The ’90 Patriots also allowed a whopping 28 points per game, second-worst in the league.

They were the worst team in football, playing in the worst stadium in football, a concrete eyesore that first was named after one of the worst beers on the planet.

My family had season tickets, and I was never so glad to be away at college, avoiding those 5 a.m. wake-up calls on cold Sunday mornings to drive from Rutland, Vermont, to Foxboro Stadium (it was named Schaefer Stadium first) out of nothing but misguided obligation.

Rod Rust, a former defensive coordinator, was the head coach and he was in way over his head. He had a sound football mind but was completely unprepared for everything being a head coach entails.

OK, that part is an apt comparison to the 2024 Patriots, but the point is this: the current team is bad, but nowhere close to historically bad.

After Sunday’s Pyrrhic victory over the Buffalo Bills, owner Robert Kraft fired coach Jerod Mayo before the Gillette Stadium parking lots were empty. Monday afternoon, Kraft admitted Mayo wasn’t ready to be a head coach. So here we are.

It’s tough to judge whether Mayo was a good coach or not. On one hand, he did himself no favors with some of his actions. Calling his team soft after a loss to Jacksonville, or not going for the win after scoring in the final seconds of the fourth quarter at Tennessee, for example. On the other hand, the team he was asked to coach was arguably the least talented in the NFL. Mayo was set up to fail, and that falls on Robert and Jonathan Kraft.

Bill Belichick won six Super Bowls with the Patriots, but he did a poor job in the draft in his final seasons, leaving successor Jerod Mayo with a roster lacking talent. Michael Dwyer/Associated Press

It also falls heavily on his predecessor, Bill Belichick. The pride of the North Carolina Tar Heels is the most accomplished coach in NFL history. There are six Super Bowl banners hanging in Gillette Stadium that have Belichick’s fingerprints all over them. That said, a string of terrible drafts going back years have his fingerprints all over them, too.

New England’s last five drafts — all but one of which Belichick oversaw — have produced barely a handful of serviceable NFL players. Quarterback Drake Maye, the first-round pick last spring, looks like a keeper. Belichick, of course, was not with the Patriots for this draft.

Cornerback Christian Gonzalez, the first-round pick in 2023, does, too. Keion White, Demario Douglas and Kayshon Boutte look like contributors out of that 2023 draft. Return man Marcus Jones is all that came out of 2022. Christian Barmore, if the team keeps him, is a solid defensive line player out of the 2021 draft class, and Rhamondre Stevenson, also drafted in ’21, is a fine running back if you glue the ball to his hands. Safety Kyle Duggar and lineman Michael Onwenu are all that came out of 2020.

Let’s not forget Belichick’s string of first-round busts. Mac Jones, N’Keal Harry, Isaiah Wynn, Malcom Brown, Dominique Easley. That’s just going back a decade. I could keep going, but the point is made. For every late-round steal (and Tom Brady is now and forevermore the biggest late-round steal in professional sports history), there is a big swing and a miss at the top. And those leave scars. Those leave a first-time head coach with too many holes to field a competitive team.

From my perch in Maine, I see two players the next coach can build around, Maye and Gonzalez. Maybe with a little more talent, this team wins … six or seven games? Maybe with a little more talent, close losses to Seattle (23-20 in overtime), Miami (15-10), Tennessee (20-17 in overtime), and Indianapolis (25-24) are victories.

The Patriots have the fourth pick in the draft, which is April 24-26 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Until the Patriots beat Buffalo’s junior varsity Sunday, they held the No. 1 pick. It’s too soon to say what the Patriots should do with the fourth pick. A lot depends on how they do in free agency convincing veteran players to come here. For now, the most glaring weakness on a long list of weaknesses is left tackle. Whether that’s a veteran free agent or a rookie, somebody needs to keep Maye upright.

A generation of success left Patriots fans spoiled and unprepared for this inevitable slide back into the NFL’s chasm of mediocrity. The next coach, be it Mike Vrabel, current Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, or somebody else, has his hands full in reconstructing this team into a contender. After handing the team to Mayo, who was neither ready for it nor given the tools to succeed, the Krafts have to get this hire right.

The 1990 season was 35 years ago, but when you look at the results on the field in 2024, it doesn’t seem so far away.