FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Jerod Mayo has gone from valued assistant to first-time head coach, and among the NFL’s current coaches, he is the youngest of all.
He is also following one of the most successful coaches in league history as he succeeds Bill Belichick, who built the New England Patriots into one of the NFL’s preeminent franchises by winning six Super Bowls in 24 seasons.
And the former Patriots linebacker and Belichick assistant is embracing all of it, promising first and foremost that the team’s new era would be led by someone who is very much his own man.
“I’m not trying to be Bill,” Mayo said during his introductory news conference Wednesday. “I think that Bill is his own man. If you can’t tell by now, I’m a little bit different even up here. But what I will say is the more I think about lessons I’ve taken from Bill, hard work works. Hard work works, and that’s what we’re all about.”
Mayo’s also not shying away from what it means to him to be the Patriots’ first Black head coach in a league that had just three at the start of the 2023 season: Mike Tomlin (Pittsburgh Steelers), Todd Bowles (Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and DeMeco Ryans (Houston Texans).