FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Jerod Mayo has spent his entire professional football career learning from Bill Belichick, first as a standout linebacker and then as an assistant to the legendary coach.
He’ll now have the weighty task of succeeding the six-time Super Bowl champion and guiding the New England Patriots as the team’s first new leader in more than two decades.
The Patriots named Mayo to succeed Belichick as the franchise’s 15th head coach on Friday. The team said Mayo, the first Black head coach in the history of a franchise that began competition in 1960 as an AFL member, will be formally introduced at a news conference Wednesday.
Mayo, a native of Hampton, Virginia, played at the University of Tennessee from 2004 to 2007 and received All-Southeastern Conference and All-America recognition with the Volunteers before being selected by New England with the No. 10 overall pick of the 2008 NFL draft.
He played eight NFL seasons, all with the Patriots, and won a Super Bowl ring in February 2015 before retiring a year later. He has been an assistant under Belichick since 2019, serving primarily as the team’s linebackers coach.