FOXBOROUGH – As Jerod Mayo was swarmed by a room full of reporters on Tuesday morning, Jerod Mayo stepped up onto a podium with a towel around his neck, seemingly after a workout.

Maybe he was just preparing to sweat out the plethora of questions ahead of him.

Either way, Mayo addressed quite a bit during the first bit of media availability at Gillette Stadium. While he was coy with how he answered questions regarding his role – which we all think has been elevated, otherwise why else would you turn down head coaching offers? – he did acknowledge he’s been doing a bit more now. Whether anyone says it or not, it’s pretty clear that Mayo has been perfectly set up to be the next guy in line whenever the Bill Belichick era officially ends.

“I don’t have a title yet and I don’t have any business cards,” Mayo said with a grin. “There are some things they’ve allowed me to participate in. I’m not exactly sure as far as the role, that’s a BB question…I was in some of the interviews during the interview process, which was a great experience for me. The offensive line interviews and also the offensive coordinator interviews, so it was good.”

Mayo was asked directly why he chose to stay and not take the head coaching job interviews in front of him if there’s no clear elevation or role change.

“First of all, my family’s here,” he said. “Second of all, I would say I love it here in Boston. I pretty much was raised here at this point. I came here in 2008. It would take a lot for me to leave. This is where I want to be and I feel the same way from the coaching staff and also from the Kraft family.”

Mayo reiterated how thrilled he is to be in the spot that he’s in, even if if the waters surrounding his future with the organization – at least from the outside – seem a bit muddy.

“I’m excited,” said Mayo. “I’m excited to continue to grow. I’m excited to continue to learn new things, not only X’s and O’s, that’s only a small part of it. I’m just excited and honestly, I’m just trying to learn and be a sponge as much as I can when I’m in those meetings that I’m not normally in.”

Things only got a bit muddier when Mayo emphasized the fact that it’s still Steve Belichick calling the plays on defense. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen, but Mayo is at least talking like the team player he’s always been.

“Look, Steve and I have a great relationship and I would say all the defensive coaches, we’re all on the same page,” Mayo said. “Nothing is really going to change in that regard and look, sometimes Steve is in those meetings as well. It’s good…there’s still a lot that I don’t know and I’m very aware of that…Steve’s calling the plays. He’s doing a great job and he’s been doing a great job calling the plays since 2019 and I have no complaint or anything like that. Once again, I’ve learned a lot from Steve as well. He’s a very smart coach and he does a good job calling the game. Our defense has been pretty good since ’19, so we’ve just got to try and keep it going.”

Does Mayo at least get to be in the draft room next week? That’s still TBD.

“I hope so, you’ve got to ask Bill,” Mayo added with a bit of a laugh.

When Mayo was asked about the official retirement of teammate Dont’a Hightower, he may have unknowingly given everyone a bit of a look into the crystal ball when it comes to the eventual replacement for Belichick.

“I spoke with High and High and I have always had a great relationship. I was older, he was like the young pup, but he was very smart, very athletic. I got a chance to play beside him. I got a chance to coach him. There aren’t many people like Hightower, just as far as his smarts. I think that gets overlooked a lot with High. High’s a very smart football player. You talk about Randy Moss, no one really talks about his smarts. Very smart football players and that’s Dont’a Hightower. I think Hightower would be a phenomenal coach, so, we’ll see.

“When I get a chance to run my own ship, I’ll try to recruit him.”

It’s very clear that the Mayo head coaching ship is taking off sooner rather than later, it’s just still a bit unclear whether that’s going to be at 1 Patriot Place or not. Right now, it’s apparent that the Krafts are pushing for Mayo to be more involved in more decisions, whether that leads to him being the successor to Belichick, well, only time will tell.