Patriots Head Coach Jerod Mayo Wants To Set Different Expectations

New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo has a tall task ahead of him as he looks to carry on the legacy of one of the NFL’s greatest coaches. But in his introductory press conference, Mayo made one thing clear. He won’t be Bill Belichick.

“Now as far as our staff and things like that, we’re going to be good, we’re going to be a lot better,” Mayo said at the press conference. “Now Bill always says this: ‘managing expectations.’ For me, I’m not trying to be Bill, I’m not trying to be Bill. I think that Bill is his own man, if you can’t tell by now I’m even a little bit different up here. But what I will say is, the more I think about the lessons that I’ve taken from Bill, hard work works, right? Hard work works. And that’s what we’re all about.”

In an uncharacteristically genial interview for a New England head coach, Mayo has already done some work to differentiate himself from his mentor. But the tests for the 37-year-old are just beginning as the team’s off-season begins.

Mayo played his entire NFL career, from 2008 to 2015, for Belichick and spent the last five seasons as the Patriots’ inside linebackers coach. He received the sudden promotion to head coach after many of his superiors failed Belichick in recent seasons.

The team’s offense has been hapless for the past two seasons as Matt Patricia and Bill O’Brien have sputtered in separate experiments. Mayo has to nurture a young, well-built defense while also finding personnel to kickstart an offense in desperate need of a rebuild.

Beyond these logistical problems, Mayo will have to deal with the inescapable perception of following Belichick, one that he has already taken steps to defend against in public. Setting a different expectation, as he put it, will be helpful as he looks to preserve his former mentor’s legacy while also making the program his own.

Media outlets will constantly compare Mayo’s first days with Belichick’s massive body of work, which seems unfair on the surface. But something that could work to Mayo’s advantage is that there isn’t necessarily pressure to carry on any immediate success.

The challenge for Mayo is to carry on a legacy, the idea of a Patriots dynasty, but that era of New England history realistically ended years ago. Belichick didn’t give Mayo a super team before departing; he gave him some pieces to build a solid defense and a barren wasteland of an offense. In many ways, the new head coach is getting the opportunity to rebuild a seasoned franchise from the ground up. What he does with that opportunity remains to be seen.