Jerod Mayo being head coach of the New England Patriots is a unique situation.
Instead of a locker room having to get to know an entirely new person, Mayo’s preexisting relationships with guys on the team have made the transition from Bill Belichick to Mayo much easier for everyone.
During an appearance on the ‘Chauxtalk’ podcast with Davon Godchaux, Godchaux told Mayo that guys are willing to ‘run for a wall’ for him already. During his final Week 1 press conference on Friday morning, I asked Mayo what that meant to him considering he hasn’t even had one game as a head coach yet.
“It means a lot. It means a lot,” he said. “I always talk about the story of when I became a captain in my second year in the league. My first year as a rookie, at times – this is when we had two-a-days and all of that stuff too – the guys would send me in the coach’s office, and people were kind of, not scared to go in there, but said, ‘Let’s send Mayo in there.’ I would go in there, and I would say ‘Coach, the guys are tired. They can’t be in pads today.’ A lot of times, he would send me out, and be like, ‘Whatever. We’re going to do X, Y, and Z.’ But there were the few times where he was like, ‘You know what? You’re right.’ I would go back in the locker room, and I think the guys recognized that I cared more about them than my feelings.
“I would say it’s the same thing here coaching. I care more about their growth and their development more than anything. I say players win games and coaches lose games. I’m going to do my best not to lose those games and put those guys in the best position to be successful.”
Later in the day when the media had some time in the locker room following practice, I asked Godchax, Keion White, Ja’Whaun Bentley and Mike Onwenu why this team is already behind Mayo so adamantly and just how different the feeling is coming to work every day compared to the Belichick days.
“Just the mentality,” said Godchaux. “We’ve always had a good relationship off the field too. It all boils down to relationships, just having a good relationship with the guys. It was the same with Bill. Just having that relationship when (Mayo) was a linebackers coach, building that…it was a no-brainer when he came here as head coach. He’s a guy who looks at it from a player aspect. He played in the league. He knows what it takes to get the job done. He’s a guy who built this legendary defense when he played back in the day, so it’s just all about the relationship and we have a great one.”
“To us, he’s already coached a game. He was the defensive coordinator last year, so we already know him and were willing to run through a wall for him last year,” White said. “It’s got nothing to do with (the defense), you should really ask the guys on offense because this is a new experience for them. For us, this is just a continuance of what we did last year…he’s been there. You’ve got to respect somebody that’s been through it…drafted in the first round, played here his whole career, coached here. He’s lived it at every level and is also very relatable and is able to have conversations with you in the locker room. He’s very personable. Having those connections with your players establishes that trust and respect and he can also correct you a little bit more and some guys will get the message a little better. Things like that…personally, I feel like things are similar (to when Belichick was here) like, you work and it’s the same amount of work. But, it’s wrapped in a different package. Mayo is just being himself. You can’t fill nobody else’s shoes. You can’t fill Bill Belichick’s shoes, so he’s just being him. That’s the best thing to do. I feel like we would be able to tell if he’s trying to be somebody he’s not. If he had come in here and done a complete 180, we would have been like, ‘nah’ and wouldn’t respond to that. But, he’s being himself and guys are responding to it well.”
“He’s been my position coach, so he’s already been coaching me for a few years,” added Bentley. “He’s a personable coach. Like (Davon) said, he’s a guy you’ll run through a brick wall for because you know he’d do the same for you. He trusts us. He has confidence in us. Stuff like that, obviously it’s a professional business, so we’re going to go out there and do our thing regardless. But, it gets you going even more when you know the coach has your back, so having Jerod out there is definitely big…I wouldn’t call it walking on eggshells, I’d say guys are playing a little bit more free now. You can play with a little more swagger and things like that. You kind of take on the characteristics of your coach and the traits and all that, so I guess I’m throwing Mayo a nice compliment that he has some swag. We did the same thing with Bill, but when the man at the top switches, the aura kind of switches. It’s just a thing. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different. It’s good to see how he rubs off on other players.”
“I would just say, knowing him as a person,” Onwenu said. “The defense had him as a defensive coach, but me just knowing him as a man and as a coach, I’ve seen what he does as a defensive coach. You know what he’s about. It’s just a turnover. I would say it’s a lot of the same principles and everything Bill stood for, so, it makes it easy to just go out there and do the same thing, but now, it’s just go play. You don’t have to worry about things too much. I wouldn’t say it’s looser (around the building), it’s just different because of who’s the head coach obviously. Like, I would say the work is still the same. That hasn’t changed…but, guys obviously felt like they were on eggshells sometimes. You had to be in the right all the time (under Belichick) and had to make sure all your P’s and Q’s were in order all the time. That’s not to say we aren’t now, but you didn’t want to do the wrong thing or say the wrong thing in front of him or to him. I’d say that’s the little bit of difference, but I still feel the same way. Any head coach that’s my head coach I respect him and play for him.”
It’s clear that the regime change has allowed guys to be themselves more than they were allowed to the last 25 years. We’ll see if it translates to success on the field.