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Mike Reiss, ESPN Staff Writer
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Robert Kraft remembers the day he knew Jerod Mayo would be Bill Belichick’s successor as New England Patriots head coach. Kraft was waiting in a private lounge at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, joined by past and present Patriots players at the end of a six-day trip in June 2019.
Kraft had regularly sponsored spiritual visits to Israel, bringing Pro Football Hall of Famers who have described being baptized in the Jordan River and visiting holy sites in Jerusalem as transformative.
This trip was different. Dedicated solely to Patriots players from all eras of his ownership tenure, it transformed Kraft’s future vision for the franchise.
There was a delay returning home. The airport lounge was like a locker room. And Mayo was in the middle, surrounded by players from the 1990s such as quarterback Drew Bledsoe and cornerback and Pro Football Hall of Famer Ty Law, players from the early and mid-2000s including running back Kevin Faulk and defensive tackle Vince Wilfork, and players from the 2010s with cornerback Stephon Gilmore and offensive linemen David Andrews and Joe Thuney.
Kraft observed how Mayo, who had been working for the healthcare company Optum since his NFL retirement following the 2015 season, connected with the diverse group.
“What especially got my attention was how he organized some meetings, a dialogue. … It was with veterans and current Patriots. He had been out of the organization, but that showed me a skill of being able to get along,” Kraft said.
“A bell went off, and I said, ‘That’s my next head coach.'”
When the Patriots take the field at the New York Jets on Thursday night (8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video), Mayo will be on the sideline making his prime-time head-coaching debut. It will be the first time in 25 years Belichick won’t be coaching the Patriots against an AFC East rival.
It’s the beginning of the new Patriot Way.
The differences in leadership between Belichick and Mayo are striking. Belichick was rigid and intimidating to approach, with relentless attention to detail that included challenging players with pop quizzes about the upcoming opponent. Mayo believes in empowering players and investing in them personally before demanding more on the field.
“It’s about developing people,” Mayo said. “I want those guys to play well each and every snap and win a bunch of games. But I also want them to be resilient when times are tough. That leads to the post-football career.”
The change in culture was intentional. Kraft believes players entering the NFL respond better to a different style of coaching than they did a decade ago. At the same time, he knew that moving away from the old-school Belichick for a first-time head coach was a gamble — especially for a team in the middle of a rebuild.
The early returns have been promising as the Patriots are 1-1, something that wasn’t expected from a team ESPN’s Football Power Index projected would have the least amount of wins this season.
The season-opening victory over the Cincinnati Bengals was the biggest Week 1 upset across the NFL since 2018, according to ESPN Research, with the Patriots entering as a 7.5-point underdog.
It’s a potential sign that Mayo’s way is working.
Outside linebackers coach Drew Wilkins, who is in his first year in New England after spending a decade with the Baltimore Ravens under John Harbaugh and the past two seasons on Brian Daboll’s New York Giants staff, described Mayo as “a great North Star to look up to.”
“The details he coaches with, the enthusiasm he brings to the room, a guy who collaborates and brings positive energy into the building every day, you can’t ask for anything more than that,” Wilkins said.
MAYO, 38, is younger than Belichick’s decorated 49-year coaching career.
He was Belichick’s first-round draft pick in 2008 out of Tennessee as the 10th selection. Mayo played linebacker for the Patriots from 2008 to 2015 — a seven-time captain who totaled 905 tackles — then coached on Belichick’s staff from 2019 to 2023.
Some teammates called Mayo “Mini Bill” because they believed he saw the game through a coach’s lens. Mayo lived minutes away from the team facility because he spent so much time there — like Belichick. When players wanted to sway Belichick on things like changing the team’s itinerary, they would ask Mayo to speak to him.
To Mayo, those were moments he could prove to his teammates that he had their backs. He points to that relationship building as a foundational part of his coaching style now.
Such an approach appealed to Kraft, who said at Mayo’s introductory news conference in January: “I think we’ve got someone very special who understands how to manage young people today. The world is different than 20 years ago, even 10 years ago.”
This is why Law, a former Patriot who became close with Mayo in Israel, believes Kraft made a shrewd choice.
“You have to have someone in tune with that, and he understands these players,” Law said of Mayo. “Think about second- and third-round draft picks; that used to be a huge deal. Now with NIL, some of those guys are taking a pay cut from college, they’re already coming in as millionaires. It’s a different mentality, and [Mayo is] young enough to understand it.”
At one point, Kraft said he became concerned the Patriots might lose Mayo. Then New England’s linebackers coach, Mayo was interviewed by the Denver Broncos, Philadelphia Eagles and Las Vegas Raiders for their head-coaching openings in 2021 and 2022. So, before the 2023 season, Kraft included a succession clause in Mayo’s contract to make him the head coach whenever Belichick’s time in New England ended.
When Belichick left the Patriots in January after a 4-13 campaign, they wasted no time in naming Mayo as his successor. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell later called the succession clause “smart management.”
Almost two months into the job, Mayo ran into Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin at the NFL annual meetings in Orlando, Florida. If anyone could relate to Mayo’s new position of succeeding a legendary coach, it was Tomlin.
Tomlin, who like Mayo is from Hampton, Virginia, was hired by the Steelers in 2007 when he was 34. He succeeded Bill Cowher (15 seasons), who himself succeeded Chuck Noll (23 seasons) — two legends who had delivered a combined five Super Bowl titles.
“He told me, ‘Every day is going to be different,'” Mayo recalled Tomlin saying. “He wasn’t lying. That’s how it’s been so far.”
SIX DAYS BEFORE the Patriots opened the 2024 regular season at Cincinnati, eight-year veteran defensive tackle Davon Godchaux wanted to interview Mayo for an episode of his podcast. But Godchaux hesitated.
He never would have considered asking Belichick, who often reminded players to stay off social media and keep their focus on football.
“I wasn’t even going to ask [Mayo] at first, but then I was like, ‘Why not?'” Godchaux said. “And he’s so understanding. He said, ‘Of course, anything to support you.’
“It’s a busy time for him, and it was a reach for me to ask. I could say so many things, but he’s supportive and caring.”
Godchaux said he would run into a wall for Mayo and believed his teammates would do the same.
Mayo’s standing as a former player has helped him in the locker room, according to fifth-year safety Kyle Dugger, who has observed a team culture that includes some of Belichick’s core principles complemented with a Mayo twist.
“It’s a lot of similar values as far as the foundation of hard work and all-around doing our job the right way, not getting into the media and listening to the outside noise,” Dugger said. “I think the biggest difference is that the communication has been really open and up-front from him to us — coach to player — and him having the voices to be taken a little more seriously in the locker room.”
“It’s really important for me to feel I have a voice, and he wants to know how things can be run better or how he can help us.”
Dont’a Hightower, the former New England linebacker who played alongside Mayo for four seasons and is now in his first year on the Patriots’ coaching staff, said Mayo pulls no punches.
“What you see is what you get,” Hightower said. “Passion and purpose. He motivates guys to do certain things and step outside their comfort zones. Guys gravitated toward him when he was a player, and they do it now.”
KRAFT FIGURES THERE will be some inevitable growing pains. In addition to 17 outside-the-organization coaches hired by Mayo, the roster includes 10 rookies and 12 other newcomers.
So, Kraft is measured when asked how he will assess the 2024 season for a franchise that was the NFL’s gold standard for nearly two decades, winning six Super Bowls under Belichick.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. We will probably be in for some rough times. But this is how you build. Our first year with Bill, we went 5-11,” Kraft said. “Jerod exudes a certain confidence and has created an atmosphere of positivity.
“I don’t know what our record is going to be, but … there is a certain connectivity and mutual respect yet pushing back on one another.”
In the fourth quarter of the Week 1 game against the Bengals, as New England attempted to run out the clock, starting quarterback Jacoby Brissett told his teammates to “take them to the hill!” It was a reference to how Mayo ran long, tough training camp practices that finished with players running up a nearby hill multiple times, which had been a Belichick staple. It has become the team motto.
“I was so excited hearing that from the players. It meant a lot,” Mayo said. “We always talk about taking the hard route. That just means all the extra things we do, it pays off.”
In Week 2, the Patriots lost 23-20 in overtime to the visiting Seattle Seahawks. New England couldn’t hold a three-point lead late in the fourth quarter when it was in control of the game. The Pats had entered as a 3.5-point underdog.
“We talked about it at the beginning of the season — what success looks like for me — and that’s getting better each and every week,” Mayo said. “Not only the players, but also the coaches and myself.”
After the win in Cincinnati, Kraft presented Mayo with a game ball. Kraft hopes it will be the first of many victory celebrations, which the Patriots had grown accustomed to during Belichick’s reign, before things tailed off in recent years.
“I really believe he’s created an atmosphere where the dialogue and communication with the players, they’re going to go out and play for him. I want to see that effort and players putting out,” Kraft said. “The [external] expectations for us are not very high; I want that to tick them off, and look, we want to win games.
“But I think this year … will be great growth and lay the foundation for the future.”