Jerod Mayo expecting big jump from himself in Year 2 as Patriots head coach
FOXBORO -- New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo has gone through plenty of growing pains in his first season in charge of an NFL team. He hopes to improve the rest of the way in 2024, but believes he'll be a much better coach in his second season.
Mayo said Friday that he's keeping notes on all the things that have gone right for him and his team, as well as all of things that haven't gone their way through a 2-7 start to the season. The latter of the two is a pretty lengthy list, and must take up a good chunk of his notebook.
Mayo tries to learn from his ups and downs each week, and constantly talks about himself and players not being "repeat" mistake-makers. He's planning on making a real deep dive into that notebook in the offseason, so that he comes back as a much stronger and better coach in Year 2.
"[Players] make their biggest jump from year one to year two. My expectation for me personally as a head coach is to make the biggest jump from year one to year two," Mayo said Friday, ahead of the team's Week 10 matchup with the Bears in Chicago.
Mayo and the Patriots understood that it was likely going to be a bumpy road for the first-year head coach heading into the 2024 campaign. Mayo was never a head coach at any level prior to taking over for Bill Belichick, and there is a severe lack of top-end talent on the New England roster. It wasn't exactly a recipe for success, as we've seen over the first nine weeks of the season.
But the Patriots are going to give their head coach (and young team for that matter) time to grow. Mayo didn't want to give away what he's written in his notebook, but he did shed some light on his offseason gameplan on Friday.
"It's a combination of things. You can start from X's and O's, you can then go to situational football. You can also go through structure and culture," said Mayo. "Do I think I've done things right? Absolutely. Are there ways to improve? One thousand percent. Do I wish I would've done certain things differently? Yeah.
"Those are things, when you get a chance to take some time to reflect, you go somewhere where no one can find me by myself -- no kids, no nothing -- and just reflect on the season," Mayo continued. "I think it's important, not only for football players for anyone to take those times to reflect and see what you can do better."
Did Mayo feel vindication after Bengals' failed 2-point try Thursday?
Mayo's response was sparked by a question from ESPN Boston's Mike Reiss about the Cincinnati Bengals' failed 2-point conversion at the end their loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night. The Bengals scored a touchdown with 38 seconds to go to make it a 35-34 game, and head coach Zac Taylor had the team go for two and the win. But the conversion failed (as NFL officials missed several blatant penalties on the Ravens) and the Bengals lost the game.
Mayo and the Patriots were in a similar situation last weekend in Tennessee, but opted to kick the extra point and head to overtime rather than go for a 2-point conversion and the win. The Titans ended up winning in overtime, and Mayo was criticized for his decision throughout the week.
Mayo sounded somewhat vindicated Friday morning after the Bengals' failed try on Thursday. The head coach joked that he and Reiss should do one of those deep dives into the success rates of 2-point conversions over the offseason.
"It's funny man. It's very interesting. You're always going to have people on either side, and I understand it," said Mayo. "If it works, you're a genius. If it doesn't work, then you leave yourself open to criticism. It's part of it. But again, there are so many factors that go into it. Whether you're talking about analytics, but analytics doesn't take into account other things. What's the weather? How's the game flow going? What are the matchups? There are so many different things.
"I would say last night, [Taylor] probably felt that was the best thing to do for his team. It's easy to second-guess it, but it's interesting. It is interesting," Mayo added.
We'll get you ready for this weekend's Patriots-Bears showdown Sunday morning with Patriots GameDay at 11:30 a.m. (which you can also stream on CBSBoston.com), and switch to TV38 after the game for full reaction and analysis on Patriots 5th Quarter!