Robert Kraft eyes Jerod Mayo as Invoice Belichick’s potential Patriots ‘inheritor obvious’
The Patriots are determining what comes subsequent.
The soon-to-be 71-year-old head coach helped lead New England to 6 Tremendous Bowl wins, however the franchise has struggled since Tom Brady’s departure in 2020.
With Invoice Belichick’s NFL time winding down — and a number of other of his prime coordinators having been poached away over time — it appears the Patriots are taking a look at ex-linebacker Jerod Mayo because the coach’s potential alternative.
“Properly, he’s undoubtedly a robust candidate to be the inheritor obvious, however we now have another good individuals in our system,” New England proprietor Robert Kraft told NFL Network on the NFL Annual Assembly on Monday. “So proper now, we now have a great head coach, and we’re doing every thing we are able to to assist him, and ensure we do every thing we are able to to win.”
In January, as their offseason started early for the second time in three seasons, the Patriots put out a 39-word statement saying they’d “begun contract extension discussions” with Mayo within the hopes to maintain him within the fold “long-term.”
It was a shocking quantity of data for the notoriously tight-lipped franchise to offer away, and it got here after a season by which the Patriots completed 8-9 and struggled offensively beneath Matt Patricia and Joe Decide.
Belichick’s handing the offensive reins over to Patricia and Decide — in murky, never-officially-defined roles — was not one thing Kraft significantly loved, both.
“I believe he obtained put in a troublesome place; it was form of an experiment,” Kraft mentioned of Patricia. “He labored very exhausting at it. On reflection, I don’t assume it was the proper factor. I really feel unhealthy for him as a result of he’s such a tough employee and he obtained put in a troublesome place.”
Belichick did carry again his former offensive coordinator Invoice O’Brien to assist proper the ship — and support Mac Jones’s continued improvement, even when he won’t name the third-year QB his starter.
For Kraft, discovering the proper head coach in an upcoming post-Belichick world is necessary in serving to carry the franchise again to the playoffs constantly once more.
“Essential. I believe that’s our goal,” Kraft mentioned. “We’ve gone by 4 years the place we haven’t [won the Super Bowl]. We’ve been spoiled, however after my household, my ardour [is] the Patriots soccer workforce and successful soccer video games and that’s an important turn-on for me. So final yr was robust. I’m a fan first. I sat within the stands for 30, 40 years, dreaming if I ever had an opportunity, what I might do.
“So we need to get again to successful as greatest we are able to.”