A 12 months earlier than the Patriots named Jerod Mayo their subsequent head coach, they penned his future into existence.
Ownership secretly signed off on a clause in Mayo’s final contract, a clause now well-known for permitting the Patriots to skip a conventional head-coaching search each time they parted with Bill Belichick. This week, that clause opened the door for Mayo lower than 24 hours after the Krafts shut it on Belichick, and Mayo walked in as a result of that’s what the Krafts needed.
Not simply this week, however for a complete 12 months.
Remember: the Krafts launched an unprecedented assertion saying they’d opened contract negotiations with Mayo in January 2023; an announcement that chafed Belichick, in response to stories, and left him feeling undermined. At the time, Mayo had accomplished simply his fourth season in teaching, but in some way proven sufficient to persuade the Krafts he was a worthy successor to the best coach of all time.
Why did the Krafts make such a leap of religion? We’ll discover out Wednesday throughout Mayo’s introductory press convention. Until we are able to parse their solutions, it’s time to evaluate whether or not that leap was price risking a fall into deeper NFL obscurity.
From this perch, the reply is … sure.
Mayo is a worthy gamble for the Patriots. And sure, he’s a bet; not solely by advantage of being a first-time head coach, however the truth Krafts didn’t hassle to stack his possibilities of success towards every other candidates’. Not even Mike Vrabel, who made three playoff runs in a six-year span when his greatest quarterback was Ryan Tannehill, and received a better proportion of video games as an underdog than each different head coach within the NFL besides two.
Was Mayo one of the best candidate accessible? We’ll by no means know. Mayo was an all-in shove on the blackjack desk after the Krafts had peeked at one card, hit as soon as and determined they’d seen sufficient.
What we do know is Mayo feels like an ace. Since he joined the teaching workers in 2019, the Patriots protection has ranked No. 1 within the league by EPA. He suits the profile of a coach match to modernize the group: a person who connects with as we speak’s technology of gamers, injects life right into a room and instructions it, is well-regarded for his Xs and Os and referred to as a pointy, unbiased thinker.
Translation: not a foul Belichick impersonator, a la Eric Mangini or Joe Judge.
Mayo is safe in his personal pores and skin and sensibilities. He proved this two weeks in the past throughout a video convention with reporters, when he expressed a mixture of vulnerability and reflection whereas rebuking a report citing nameless sources that claimed he’d been “rubbing people the wrong way” inside the power. For no matter that kind of declare is price.
“It was more hurtful than anything. I found it to be, well — the timing is a little bit weird, in my opinion,” Mayo mentioned of the report. “And if that was the case, I feel like this would have been leaked sometime earlier. … Some people appreciate that transparency and some don’t. But at the end of the day, if we can’t rub people the wrong way, how do you expect to be the best that you can be?”
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He continued: “And I’d say, any time there’s change or something like that, it is gonna be painful. If somebody’s gonna rub you the flawed method, on the finish of the day, it’s a must to look via all of the phrases and actually get to the substance, or get to the meat and potatoes, of what that particular person’s making an attempt to say.
“So, it actually helped me. It kind of triggered a period of self-reflection.”
How usually would Belichick converse like that? Never. Never, ever. Never, ever, ever.
Now, within the spirit of full transparency, I did hear from two sources Mayo acted “a little differently” final season; principally ever since he inked his contract that included the succession clause. Both sources stopped in need of saying Mayo had been abrasive or disagreeable. Just completely different. And that may be a essential distinction.
Because let’s be sincere: in case you had been empowered by probably the most highly effective particular person at your organization, advised you had been worthy of changing the CEO, somebody well known as the best ever, how would you are feeling? How would you act?
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Naturally, Mayo – who for 3 straight years has mentioned publicly he believes he is able to turn out to be a head coach – has been itching to take over. What occurred is that turned apparent to these behind closed doorways. But now, who cares?
Mayo’s time has come. It’s his present. His crew.
What you’ll witness Wednesday in his opening act, and over the approaching months, is how Mayo’s persona carries a sort of gravity to it; one which pulls folks nearer to him in a method Belichick’s used to repel. That’s who he’s.
That trait alone doesn’t make Mayo match to be a head coach, however it’ll mark the primary and most blatant signal of change in New England. Necessary, very important change for a company that’s overdue for an replace, a makeover, a rejuvenation. With that rejuvenation will come ache.
Pain for Mayo, gamers and the entrance workplace, as they study and develop collectively. Mayo’s inexperience is the chief motive for followers to really feel uneasy now, and he may finally fail. (Not that he is a defensive coach; Mayo can nail his offensive coordinator rent, as Belichick and Vrabel did a number of instances, and that small-minded criticism will fade away.)
But, take a breath. The die is forged. The Krafts have guess on their instincts but once more.
Mayo is their man; a coach who will construct upon Belichick’s basis, whereas remaking this system in his personal picture and finally show whether or not he was the precise selection or an pointless danger one 12 months within the making.
Source: www.bostonherald.com