Jerod Mayo is making a big change from the Bill Belichick era

FOXBORO -- As he steps into the spotlight as the new head coach of Patriots, there's also a pretty big shadow over Jerod Mayo. He has some mighty big shoes to fill, replacing Bill Belichick on the sidelines in New England.

But that doesn't seem to bother the 37-year-old, first-time head coach. Mayo learned a lot under Belichick for eight years as a linebacker and team captain on the Patriots, and then during the last five seasons as a coach on the New England defense. He'll take plenty from all of his experience with the greatest head coach in NFL history, but Mayo is also going to be himself and carry out his own vision.

Replacing a man like Belichick, who brought six Super Bowls to New England, is no easy task. But it was going to fall on someone eventually, and Mayo is happy that owner Robert Kraft trusted him to be the one.

"Today, it's just enjoy the moment. I'm ready to work and Bill had taught me a lot of things to do and some things not to do, if I'm being frank," Mayo told WBZ-TV's Steve Burton in a 1-on-1 interview following his Wednesday introduction. "At some point in time I was going to replace someone. People said you don't want to replace Bill -- it's almost like being at the Apollo and Luther Vandross goes up to sing first. Then they ask me and it's just terrible.

"But I look at it differently. I look at it as an opportunity to put my stamp on this team," added Mayo. 

We'll see that stamp immediately when it comes to Mayo's coaching staff. Belichick was not one to hand out titles, and often kept the roles filled by his assistant coaches fairly vague. 

That will not be the case under Mayo, who was simply an  "inside linebackers" coach under Belichick despite having a big hand in running the team's defense.

"I do believe in titles. I think it's more for external than internal," Mayo explained to Burton. "When I went on some of those interviews a couple of years ago, they asked, 'What exactly do you do?' You were trying to explain what you do when one word, 'defensive' coordinator or 'offensive' coordinator, they know. I just want to clean up the ambiguity or the cloudiness around who is doing what.

"Internally, the same thing," he continued. "We're knocking down barriers and repairing relationships and things like that across the board. But at the same time, what are you responsible for and what value are you bringing to the organization?"

Building up his coaching staff is Mayo's main focus at the moment. He said that everything is under consideration, and also understands that he may lose some of his assistants if they choose to follow Belichick to his next gig -- especially Belichick's two sons, Stephen and Brian, both of whom coached on the New England defense with Mayo. 

"For me, when [assistants] signed those contracts, they signed as loyalty to Bill. If people want to go, it's fine," he said. "I want people that want to be here, that want to develop players and go out and compete, compete, compete on a day to day basis.

"Coaches carrying a shared vision, I think that is the most important thing to get right," added Mayo. 

But Mayo made it clear that he wants his coaches to be more than just coaches. He hopes that everyone in the organization will become "developers" of people.

"With this generation, I think you need to show them that you care about them before you get into competency as far as X's and O's are concerned," Mayo said during his introduction. "And that's one thing I feel like with all my coaches, they should know the players, they should know their room better than I do."

Mayo also said in his introduction that he does not like echo chambers, and he wants people to push back against his ideas if they don't agree with them. That is the culture that he wants to build in New England.

"We're going to work hard and all of that stuff. But we have to instill a sense of psychological safety that, when people go to work they feel like they're being heard," he said. "Hopefully that came across today. I'll take all the feedback and we'll get to a point, hopefully, where all the collaboration will take place organically."