BOSTON — The Boston sports scene got to experience all the extremes in 2024. The Celtics brought another banner to Boston, while the Patriots were one of the worst teams — if not the worst team — in the NFL.
At least the Patriots have Drake Maye, who provided a glimmer of hope in an otherwise terrible 2024 for New England football. But things weren’t much better for the Red Sox or the Bruins, as the Red Sox missed the playoffs for the third straight October and the Bruins were dispatched by a familiar foe after winning a round in the NHL postseason.
That is just 2024 in a nutshell. Crack it open and there are plenty of highs and lows that made up the roller coaster that is Boston sports. From a championship parade to a last-place finish, here are the top sports stories in Boston sports in 2024.
Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics win 18th championship in franchise history
The Boston Celtics became champs again in 2024, as they brough home the franchise’s 18th banner in historic fashion.
After Brad Stevens added Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday to Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Derrick White, the Celtics cruised to 64 wins in the regular season — the fourth-most in franchise history. Of those 64 wins, 42 of them came by double digits and 10 were by 30 or more points.
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Joe Mazzulla’s squad demolished teams throughout 2024, as the Celtics owned a net rating of 11.6 — the fourth-best in NBA history — and led all teams with a 122.2 offensive rating (which was also a franchise record). The defense wasn’t too shabby either, with Boston checking in with a 110.6 defensive rating, which ranked second in the Association.
They also drained a lot of threes along the way, with Boston’s 1,351 makes from downtown the second-most in NBA history.
The postseason was a breeze too, as the Celtics went 16-3 en route to their title. They beat both the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers in five games, swept the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals (though Games 3 and 4 in Indy were close), and then downed the Dallas Mavericks in five games in the NBA Finals.
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It all ended with a 106-88 Game 5 thumping of the Mavericks at TD Garden, which saw Payton Pritchard hit an absurd buzzer-beater at the end of the third quarter before it rained confetti onto Boston fans. A few days later, players got to enjoy an awesome parade through Boston that saw even more green and white confetti fall.
Based on how the Celtics have been playing to start the 2024-25 season, it feels like there’s a good chance they’ll be back on those duck boats this June.
Jayson Tatum signs his supermax, gets benched during Olympics
Tatum had quite the summer. After his best all-around season saw him average 26.9 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 4.9 assists — earning his third straight First-Team All NBA honors — and win his first championship, Tatum signed a five-year, $315 million supermax extension to remain in Boston. It’s the biggest deal in NBA history, surpassing the $304 million extension that Jaylen Brown signed the previous summer.
And shortly after he got off his duck boat in Boston, Tatum joined Team USA for its run to a Olympic gold in Paris. While Tatum got a second gold medal, his time with the USMNT was marred with controversy.
That’s because Steve Kerr elected to bench Tatum in Team USA’s two games against Serbia. Tatum was still struggling with his shot (as he had been during Boston’s title run), and Kerr cited matchups as his reason for benching the C’s superstar. Kerr quickly became enemy No. 1 in Boston, though Joe Mazzulla was pretty happy that an opposing coach had given Tatum plenty of motivation for the new season.
Tatum dismissed any issues with Kerr when the Warriors were in Boston earlier this season.
Jaylen Brown passed over for Olympics, fires back at Nike
Kerr and Team USA gave Brown some motivation too, leaving him off the squad all together. Brown was seen as a no-brainer replacement when Kawhi Leonard left the team because of an injury, but Kerr and company went with Derrick White instead. Not a bad choice given White’s do-everything game, but Brown was coming off an absolute heater in the playoffs where he won MVP of both the Eastern Conference Finals and NBA Finals.
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Brown wasn’t happy, and he subscribed to the notion that his previous run-ins with Nike led to him being left out of Team USA consideration. Brown ended up getting into a War of Words with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, and then took a shot at the sneaker company in a rap single that he released later in the offseason.
New England Patriots
Patriots, Bill Belichick “mutually agree” to part ways
Bill Belichick’s dynastic run in New England came to an end last January after a 4-13 season in 2023. Robert Kraft framed it as a mutual parting of the ways, but a few months later said that he fired Belichick.
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Belichick’s time with the Patriots will never be matched, and no one in New England will ever view a cut-off hoodie the same way again. The Patriots were 266-121 in the regular season over Belichick’s 24 seasons, and an incredible 30-12 in the playoffs. Along with Tom Brady, he led the Patriots to six Super Bowl titles.
Belichick didn’t land an NFL job last offseason, and he didn’t wait around for one this offseason, either. In a move that shocked most of the football world, Belichick was introduced as the new head coach at the University of North Carolina on Dec. 12. It’s his first-ever coaching job outside of the NFL.
Patriots hire Jerod Mayo
Roughly 24 hours later, the Patriots announced that Jerod Mayo had been hired as the team’s new head coach. He had a clause in his contract that made him the head-coach-in-waiting, so the Patriots didn’t have to go through the normal hiring process before announcing Mayo as Belichick’s replacement. Kraft revealed early in the season that he saw Mayo as his next head coach five years ago.
Mayo’s first year has been, to put it frankly, a disaster. He got a nice Gatorade bath after a Week 1 win in Cincinnati, but the Patriots are 3-13 and hold the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft heading into Week 18. Mayo has had several missteps on the field and at the podium, as it’s become a weekly tradition for him to walk back something he said Sunday during his Monday morning press conferences.
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There had been a lot of reporting over the previous month that Mayo’s job was safe and he’d get a second season as long as the Patriots avoided embarrassing losses down the stretch. But Week 17’s 40-7 loss to the L.A. Chargers at Gillette Stadium — which had Pats fans chanting “Fire Mayo” late in the game — has cast a lot of doubt on Mayo’s future has head coach of the Patriots.
Patriots draft Drake Maye
One of the lone bright spots on the Patriots this season has been rookie quarterback Drake Maye, who the team drafted third overall out of UNC. Maye didn’t begin the season as the team’s starter, but took over for Jacoby Brissett in Week 5 and has turned heads ever since.
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Maye has experienced his share of rookie mistakes, with 10 interceptions and two lost fumbles. But he’s got a huge arm (with 15 touchdown passes), can hurt teams with his legs (averaging 7.8 yards per carry to go with two rushing scores), and he’s got the attitude that makes him a great future leader for the Patriots. There isn’t a lot of talent around him on the roster, but Maye has shown a lot of signs that he is indeed the real deal for New England.
The Patriots somehow got worse in 2024
Despite the high hopes that have come with Maye, the Patriots were worse in 2024 than they were in 2023. So much worse.
The disappointment started in the offseason, as Eliot Wolf wasn’t able to land a big-name receiver and he failed to build anything resembling a decent offensive line. Both of those misses have hurt the team on a weekly basis, as New England has the worst crop of receivers in the NFL and one of the worst offensive lines in the league.
The defense has also taken a massive step back, giving up big plays and getting hit with costly penalties on a regular basis. Mayo was supposed to keep that unit somewhere in the Top 10 of the league given his defensive background, but the Patriots’ defense in 2024 has been one of the biggest disappointments in the league.
Boston Red Sox
Red Sox miss playoffs for third straight season
The Red Sox did show some improvement in 2024, following up back-to-back 84-loss seasons with an 81-81 campaign. But it still wasn’t enough to end a playoff drought, which has now reached three years for the first time since a three-year postseason-less stretch from 2010-12.
Boston wasn’t officially eliminated from contention until late September, but making the playoffs was merely a dream much earlier than that. Once again, the team fell apart down the stretch due to a lack of pitching depth, though it looks like that won’t be a problem in 2025.
Jarren Duran emerges as an All-Star
Duran was an absolute stud for the Red Sox last season, breaking out with an All-Star season. Not only did he make it to the Midsummer Classic, but he was MVP of the game after leading the American League to a 5-3 victory with a go-ahead, two-run homer in the bottom of the fifth.
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Duran led all of baseball with 48 doubles and 14 triples, and finished his incredible season with a .285/.342/.492 slash line. He added 21 homers while scoring 111 runs and driving in 75, and successfully stole 34 bases on 41 attempts.
Alex Cora gets a three-year extension
Cora went into the season unsigned after the World Series, and was adamant that he didn’t want to negotiate in-season. That led many to believe that he was working his way out of Boston and was potentially in line to take over the Dodgers or Yankees in 2025.
But that all changed in late July when Cora and the team announced a three-year extension that will keep him on the Boston bench through the 2027 season. Cora is committed to the Red Sox, and the Red Sox are committed to Cora. Now they just need to start winning a lot more ball games.
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Red Sox trade for Garrett Crochet
There were plenty of rumors that the Red Sox were making a big push to sign Juan Soto, reportedly offering upwards of $700 million. But that wasn’t anywhere near enough in the end, with Soto agreeing to a 15-year, $765 million deal with the Mets.
After missing out on starter Max Fried (who went to the Yankees), Craig Breslow shifted his focus to the trade market and landed lefty Garrett Crochet, who has the potential to be Boston’s ace for years to come. The Red Sox had to give up a pretty big trade package to land Crochet, with top-rated prospects Kyle Teel and Braden Montgomery heading to Chicago in the swap, but the southpaw fills a huge void at the front of the team’s rotation.
Boston Bruins
Bruins sign Jeremy Swayman after contract stalemate
After an ugly dance in arbitration last summer, the Bruins and goalie Jeremy Swayman engaged in an even uglier and longer dance in free agency this summer. Swayman — a restricted free-agent — didn’t attend training camp with the team and things got tense as both sides played the media game during negotiations.
Swayman ended up signing an eight-year, $66 million contract just a few days before the season began. He’s had a tough time living up to that massive pact thus far, bringing a 13-10-3 record and a 2.93 Goals Against Average into Tuesday afternoon’s action.
Bruins fire Jim Montgomery
Jim Montgomery was in the final year of his contract heading into the new season and was fired after a lifeless 8-9-3 start by the Bruins. Boston’s offense was a huge disappointment to start the season, and there were some visible cracks in the surface as Montgomery got into a shouting match with captain Brad Marchand (which Marchand shrugged off) and benched David Pastrnak at one point.
Montgomery wasn’t unemployed for long, as he was hired by the St. Louis Blues about a week after getting canned by the Bruins. There may have been some funny business involved in that one, considering Montgomery was with the Blues before he was hired by Boston in 2022 and he received a five-year contract just a few days after being relieved by the Bruins.
He’s done well with St. Louis too, with Montgomery touting a 8-5-3 record with his new team. The Bruins have been much better under interim head coach Joe Sacco though, going 12-5-1 since he replaced Montgomery on the Boston bench.