Jerod Mayo thoughtfully addresses coaching future -- either in New England or elsewhere

BOSTON -- Everyone who's ever worked for or played for Bill Belichick knows the rules in Foxboro: Publicly addressing anything that might cause any distraction for the team and its pressing task at hand is strictly forbidden. Non-answers and cliches about "focusing on this week" are always the preferred -- if not demanded -- responses to any questions that stray from the football challenges of the week.

Jerod Mayo, who's both played and worked for Belichick, regularly manages to march to his own beat, though. And he showed that skill on Tuesday, when facing a question that rarely gets answered in Foxboro.

In this case, the question was rather blunt: When you stopped taking head-coaching interviews and re-signed to stay on the Patriots' staff, the outside belief was that you had been tabbed to take over when Bill Belichick steps aside, whenever that may be. Is that an accurate belief?

Mayo started to stiff-arm the question the way one might expect. But then he managed to offer an honest and insightful answer into that question.

"You've been here long enough," Mayo said to the reporter. "You already -- I bet you can say the answer that I'm about to give you. We're 100 percent focused on the Chiefs. And you know, I only try to control the controllables and that's out of my control. Hopefully as you guys all know, one day I want to be a head coach. Where that is, I don't know. But at the same time, I would say I have a lot of love for New England. I have a lot of love for the fans, the people around the building. And you know, my family, they love it here as well. So that would be great if I could stay here and continue to progress throughout my career, but we'll see."

The question also referenced the "anxiety" heading into the upcoming offseason, which Mayo addressed as well. 

"Honestly, there's really no anxiety to it," Mayo said. "You know, whatever -- I'm not trying to get too spiritual -- but wherever God wants to take me, I'll be ready to go."

As he's done in the past, Mayo took the question head-on and gave a thoughtful answer that won't create unnecessary drama or negative attention on the team -- proving once again that such a thing can be done by a coach in New England.