One day after Robert Kraft said he’d move quickly to fill the Patriots’ head coach and general manager vacancies, reports indicate that Jerod Mayo will be named the successor to Bill Belichick. Mayo becomes the 15th head coach in franchise history, the first black head coach in franchise history, and the youngest head coach in the NFL.
Despite Patriots Hall of Famer and 2021 Coach of the Year Mike Vrabel hitting the market earlier this week, the Patriots’ plans never waned, and Mayo was hired without any other candidates being interviewed.
Last offseason, the Patriots gave Mayo a contract extension, which, as reported by NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, “established a firm, contractual succession plan in a prior contract & communicated it to the NFL.” This allowed New England to skip a lengthy hiring process and bypass the Rooney Rule. According to NBC Sports Boston‘s Phil Perry, Mayo was due to replace Belichick in 2025, but the process was sped up after a disastrous 4-13 season.
The former Tennessee linebacker was drafted by the Patriots as the 10th overall pick in the 2008 draft after earning First-team All-SEC honors. Mayo was named NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, coming one tally shy of a unanimous vote, and made the PFWA All-Rookie Team. After leading the league in tackles during the 2010 season, he was a First-team All-Pro and Pro Bowl selection. He was voted to the Pro Bowl again in 2012 and is a New England’s All-2010s team member.
Mayo was also part of the Patriots’ Super Bowl-winning 2014 team, but he was placed on injured reserve after suffering a torn patellar tendon in Week 6. Injuries ultimately derailed his career, but the Patriots legend was renowned for his work ethic, intelligence, and consistency.
After a few years away from the league, Mayo joined the Patriots’ staff in 2019 as a linebackers coach. He helped former teammate Dont’a Hightower earn a Pro Bowl nod.
As recently as this season, Mayo served as the Patriots’ defensive coordinator, despite not having the title, and ran defensive meetings. He also worked closely with defensive signal-caller Steve Belichick on game days. According to MassLive‘s Mark Daniels, Mayo’s responsibilities included “breaking down the opponent’s offense, game planning on how to stop them, and breaking down practice and film sessions to give players their corrections.”
Mayo’s time working for Belichick as a player and coach should allow him to carry over what worked in the old regime while incorporating his own style. Whereas his former head coach ruled with an iron fist, Mayo leads from a place of compassion and thoughtful communication. Being a younger, black coach also allows him to relate more directly to his players in a predominately black league.
While speaking to reporters this season, Mayo detailed how he coaches out of love, explaining, “Once you build that relationship with a guy, you can be tough on the players. But if you don’t have that warmth before confidence, it was a little different when I played. Whatever the coach told you to do, you just go out and do it. But this generation is a little bit different. They want to understand the ‘why.'”
Former teammates and current players have raved about Mayo’s ability to explain the game from a unique lense that supersedes X’s and O’s, instead approaching the game from a conceptual perspective. This is partly a tribute to his experience outside of football.
When I asked New England’s then-coordinator and position coach how that background gives him an advantage as a head coaching candidate, Mayo touched on how his time at Optum under executive Larry Renfrow and former manager Mike Matteo helped him learn to communicate with different people.
“Most people think of diversity as just black and white,” Mayo said, “But there is generational diversity. There’s diversity of thought. And all those are welcome, at least to me. And I want to build an environment like that, where there is a sense of psychological safety that people don’t feel handcuffed to give their opinion.”
Mayo also explained what having a great culture means to him, saying, “Culture could be a retrospective way of validating or invalidating success, right? This team won a bunch of games, so the culture must be great. Or this team lost a bunch of games, the culture must be bad. And that’s not necessarily true.”
Despite not knowing when his chance to become a head coach would come, Mayo told reporters he was ready to seize his opportunity, saying, “I feel like I could talk to men, women, old, young, white, black, it doesn’t matter, and hopefully develop those people into upstanding citizens and help them evolve,” he said. “I feel like my calling is to develop and I would also say the role of a head coach is way different than the role of a coordinator. The role of a coordinator is way different than the role of a position coach. And so I look forward to the opportunity wherever that may be.”
The Patriots still have to fill their general manager spot, and we have yet to see how the trickle-down of recent and imminent changes will affect the rest of the staff. But New England’s defense, which ranked 9th in DVOA despite key losses, was a bright spot in a lost 2023 season, so maintaining continuity on that side of the ball should be a priority.
Regarding overall leadership, the Patriots got one of the league’s best up-and-coming coaches in Mayo. And fans should be optimistic about the first move of a new era in Foxborough.
