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FOXBORO, Mass. — For the first time in a quarter century, there’s a fresh vision in Foxboro. Jerod Mayo and Eliot Wolf are teaming up to launch the New England Patriots into the post-Bill Belichick era.
In some ways, the members of the new brain trust have been preparing for this opportunity their whole careers. With Mayo as head coach and Wolf the newly appointed executive vice president of player personnel, the Patriots have entrusted a pair of respected leaders to guide them through what they hope to be a short rebuild and quick return to prominence.
Aiding that cause is the relationship they have already forged. Mayo and Wolf have worked together in different capacities for four years, and that familiarity has led to a smooth transition. While it’s undoubtedly a challenge to take the reins from a legend, Mayo and Wolf have long been viewed by their peers around the NFL as rising stars who have earned the right to lead their own organization.
“To actually see it come together is pretty cool,” Wolf told The Athletic. “We’re on the same page. (But) we’re in the honeymoon phase. We haven’t lost a game yet. We haven’t faced a ton of adversity or any adversity, you could argue. I’m excited to bridge those things with him as they come".
Mayo and Wolf know how they want this new era to look. They’ve both interviewed for other top jobs and have had plenty of time to hone their visions for a successful franchise. They’ve already started putting their own spins on the operation.
They haven’t made changes just for the sake of making changes. They’ve left a tangible, unique imprint at the facility with the belief that it will foster better fortune after a 4-13 season, the franchise’s worst since 1992.
“We see a lot of things the same way,” Mayo told The Athletic. “Even before he was named to his role and the same thing with me, we always had conversations about football, roster development and structure. We’re pretty much on the same page on how to build a team and what we’re actually looking for.
“We’ve had a good relationship here for the last few years, and it’s good to have a person who has come from outside the organization to help me think about things differently.”
Patriots coach Jerod Mayo on empowering his players: “I’m a huge believer in having a shared vision where the players have stock, the players do take accountability.” (Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
Last Wednesday, Mayo met with those leaders to discuss their unified vision. He expected everyone to communicate what type of culture they want to set as a team. By doing it now, at essentially the calmest point of the offseason program, Mayo hopes they can recall this vision when, inevitably, the waters get choppy during the season.
“I’m a huge believer in having a shared vision where the players have stock, the players do take accountability,” Mayo said. “So when things do get bumpy — and they will get bumpy — they understand they were part of the vision when everything was good. Right now, we’re 0-0. Everyone is happy, running around, and the vibe of the building is different. But that doesn’t mean anything if we don’t go out there and execute and perform and win games and continue to change the narrative and culture here.”
Mayo isn’t trying to be different than his predecessor. He is different. Yes, he played and coached for Bill Belichick, but he can’t be Bill Belichick. And he believes his authenticity will carry significant weight with the players.
The changes around the building are Mayo-made. He hired an artist to paint an expansive mural throughout a long hallway between the coaching offices and locker room. The mural shows a football player at different stages of his life — the evolution from a kid, on the left side of the wall, to a professional, on the right side. “It takes you through the journey,” Mayo said.
The message he hopes to get across is to always play for that kid who made every imaginable sacrifice to reach the NFL. They were all at that point, and Mayo wants them to do right by their younger selves and their families.
“Really going back and reflecting on the journey to get you here, (that) will help you and the guys to establish their why,” Mayo said. “I think their why is very important, especially on those 100-degree days when I’m tired, my body hurts and all that stuff. And it’s embracing the suck. It sucks to be out here, but you have to embrace that and be able to push through.”
Mayo also has changed the vibe around the building. There’s a basketball hoop in the locker room, and some coaches even have one in their meeting rooms for an added dose of competition. The cafeteria has turned into a spot where all these new faces are encouraged to hang out and get to know each other better.
Mayo has a new philosophy on meetings, too. Gone are the marathon sessions. Now, the Patriots conduct 25-minute mental sprints before taking five-minute breaks. It’s a way to heighten the pace while giving the coaches and players a quick chance to relax before getting back after it.
Noticeably, Mayo has pared down the memorabilia from Super Bowls past. The purpose is twofold. First, to signify that this is a completely different team. Second, while it’s important to see the results of the franchise’s past seasons, it’s more valuable to recognize and prioritize the process of achieving those results.
These ideologies translate on a smaller scale, too. In meetings, Mayo wants to teach his players how to think, not what to think. It’s comparable to his five-year stint as one of Belichick’s chief defensive assistants, when Mayo empowered his players to be like stakeholders on the field. So long as they played within the system, they were encouraged to play, adjust and adapt as they saw fit throughout each game.
“I think you have to empower them to make decisions because once they cross the white lines, there’s nothing I can do for them,” Mayo said. “That’s a little different than what most people think where they want to put these tight guardrails on everything. But those guys are on the field. As a coach, we’re trying to put them in the best position. At the same time, they need to have the flexibility and the tools to go out there to perform their duty. I always try to include them as much as I can.”
Mayo, the 10th pick in the 2008 draft, was a second-year captain and a bridge between the Patriots’ two generations of Super Bowl champions. He learned from Tedy Bruschi and mentored Dont’a Hightower, and there was no question throughout Mayo’s career that he’d eventually get into coaching.
He retired after 2015 and spent three years in the business field to challenge himself in new ways before joining Belichick’s staff in 2019. As more teams requested Mayo for coaching interviews, word quickly spread around the league: The smart, charismatic and relatable former linebacker was destined for a top job once he tallied enough experience.
Mayo’s diverse background has shaped his vision for this role. He was always preparing himself to be ready when this opportunity arose.
When he returned to coach, Mayo gave himself a timeline of five years to become an NFL head coach. He made it happen. He hasn’t set a timeline for turning around the Patriots, but he believes he’s going to make that happen, too.
In some ways, the members of the new brain trust have been preparing for this opportunity their whole careers. With Mayo as head coach and Wolf the newly appointed executive vice president of player personnel, the Patriots have entrusted a pair of respected leaders to guide them through what they hope to be a short rebuild and quick return to prominence.
Aiding that cause is the relationship they have already forged. Mayo and Wolf have worked together in different capacities for four years, and that familiarity has led to a smooth transition. While it’s undoubtedly a challenge to take the reins from a legend, Mayo and Wolf have long been viewed by their peers around the NFL as rising stars who have earned the right to lead their own organization.
“To actually see it come together is pretty cool,” Wolf told The Athletic. “We’re on the same page. (But) we’re in the honeymoon phase. We haven’t lost a game yet. We haven’t faced a ton of adversity or any adversity, you could argue. I’m excited to bridge those things with him as they come".
Mayo and Wolf know how they want this new era to look. They’ve both interviewed for other top jobs and have had plenty of time to hone their visions for a successful franchise. They’ve already started putting their own spins on the operation.
They haven’t made changes just for the sake of making changes. They’ve left a tangible, unique imprint at the facility with the belief that it will foster better fortune after a 4-13 season, the franchise’s worst since 1992.
“We see a lot of things the same way,” Mayo told The Athletic. “Even before he was named to his role and the same thing with me, we always had conversations about football, roster development and structure. We’re pretty much on the same page on how to build a team and what we’re actually looking for.
“We’ve had a good relationship here for the last few years, and it’s good to have a person who has come from outside the organization to help me think about things differently.”
Patriots coach Jerod Mayo on empowering his players: “I’m a huge believer in having a shared vision where the players have stock, the players do take accountability.” (Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
‘It takes you through the journey’
Among the 38-year-old Mayo’s top priorities after being named Belichick’s successor was to empower his players and restructure the leadership dynamic to ensure their messages reach everyone in the locker room. Mayo, a seven-time captain during his eight-year playing career, remembered how difficult it became to relate to his younger teammates as he grew up and settled down with his family. To combat that, he’s appointed leaders among players who are at various stages of their careers to encourage a diversity of thought across the locker room.Last Wednesday, Mayo met with those leaders to discuss their unified vision. He expected everyone to communicate what type of culture they want to set as a team. By doing it now, at essentially the calmest point of the offseason program, Mayo hopes they can recall this vision when, inevitably, the waters get choppy during the season.
“I’m a huge believer in having a shared vision where the players have stock, the players do take accountability,” Mayo said. “So when things do get bumpy — and they will get bumpy — they understand they were part of the vision when everything was good. Right now, we’re 0-0. Everyone is happy, running around, and the vibe of the building is different. But that doesn’t mean anything if we don’t go out there and execute and perform and win games and continue to change the narrative and culture here.”
Mayo isn’t trying to be different than his predecessor. He is different. Yes, he played and coached for Bill Belichick, but he can’t be Bill Belichick. And he believes his authenticity will carry significant weight with the players.
The changes around the building are Mayo-made. He hired an artist to paint an expansive mural throughout a long hallway between the coaching offices and locker room. The mural shows a football player at different stages of his life — the evolution from a kid, on the left side of the wall, to a professional, on the right side. “It takes you through the journey,” Mayo said.
The message he hopes to get across is to always play for that kid who made every imaginable sacrifice to reach the NFL. They were all at that point, and Mayo wants them to do right by their younger selves and their families.
“Really going back and reflecting on the journey to get you here, (that) will help you and the guys to establish their why,” Mayo said. “I think their why is very important, especially on those 100-degree days when I’m tired, my body hurts and all that stuff. And it’s embracing the suck. It sucks to be out here, but you have to embrace that and be able to push through.”
Mayo also has changed the vibe around the building. There’s a basketball hoop in the locker room, and some coaches even have one in their meeting rooms for an added dose of competition. The cafeteria has turned into a spot where all these new faces are encouraged to hang out and get to know each other better.
Mayo has a new philosophy on meetings, too. Gone are the marathon sessions. Now, the Patriots conduct 25-minute mental sprints before taking five-minute breaks. It’s a way to heighten the pace while giving the coaches and players a quick chance to relax before getting back after it.
Noticeably, Mayo has pared down the memorabilia from Super Bowls past. The purpose is twofold. First, to signify that this is a completely different team. Second, while it’s important to see the results of the franchise’s past seasons, it’s more valuable to recognize and prioritize the process of achieving those results.
These ideologies translate on a smaller scale, too. In meetings, Mayo wants to teach his players how to think, not what to think. It’s comparable to his five-year stint as one of Belichick’s chief defensive assistants, when Mayo empowered his players to be like stakeholders on the field. So long as they played within the system, they were encouraged to play, adjust and adapt as they saw fit throughout each game.
“I think you have to empower them to make decisions because once they cross the white lines, there’s nothing I can do for them,” Mayo said. “That’s a little different than what most people think where they want to put these tight guardrails on everything. But those guys are on the field. As a coach, we’re trying to put them in the best position. At the same time, they need to have the flexibility and the tools to go out there to perform their duty. I always try to include them as much as I can.”
Mayo, the 10th pick in the 2008 draft, was a second-year captain and a bridge between the Patriots’ two generations of Super Bowl champions. He learned from Tedy Bruschi and mentored Dont’a Hightower, and there was no question throughout Mayo’s career that he’d eventually get into coaching.
He retired after 2015 and spent three years in the business field to challenge himself in new ways before joining Belichick’s staff in 2019. As more teams requested Mayo for coaching interviews, word quickly spread around the league: The smart, charismatic and relatable former linebacker was destined for a top job once he tallied enough experience.
Mayo’s diverse background has shaped his vision for this role. He was always preparing himself to be ready when this opportunity arose.
When he returned to coach, Mayo gave himself a timeline of five years to become an NFL head coach. He made it happen. He hasn’t set a timeline for turning around the Patriots, but he believes he’s going to make that happen, too.
‘I just went to work’
The son of Ron Wolf, the longtime NFL executive best known for his decade as general manager in Green Bay, Eliot Wolf has vivid memories of being pressed by legendary head coach Bill Parcells on hypothetical personnel decisions as a middle schooler. At his fifth-grade graduation, Wolf wrote that he wanted to be an NFL scout when he grew up.He joined the Packers’ personnel department out of college in 2004, three years after his father’s retirement, and spent 14 seasons in Green Bay, soaking up knowledge from some of the best to ever do it. His father taught him to treat people the right way, to always be honest and to stay true to his scouting evaluations: Write what you see.
Longtime player and executive Reggie McKenzie taught him how to write detailed scouting reports and which traits to zero in on during the process. Ted Thompson taught Wolf to ignore the hype about draft prospects — if you don’t like a player after thorough research, don’t worry if he’s getting hyped as a top-five pick.
With executives like John Schneider, John Dorsey and Alonzo Highsmith and coaches such as Mike Holmgren and Mike McCarthy, Wolf worked around an array of respected leaders — and winners — with the Packers.
“As I got into it and took on bigger roles in Green Bay, it was kind of like, I can do this one day,” Wolf said about running a front office. “I felt like I was definitely prepared and ready for it.”
Wolf worked as Dorsey’s assistant general manager with the Cleveland Browns (2018-19) before joining the Patriots in 2020. He bounced between pro and college scouting to balance out the department head’s area of expertise, from Nick Caserio to Dave Ziegler and Matt Groh. He became more entrusted with contract negotiations as he grew in New England, all while having direct access to Belichick. In 2023, Wolf attended more college games and evaluated each of the top quarterback prospects in person, which proved fruitful on draft night as the team selected Drake Maye with the third pick.
When the Patriots replaced Belichick with Mayo in January, it sent a clear message to the rest of the league that Wolf’s promotion was imminent. Wolf had established a strong reputation both inside Gillette Stadium and around the NFL, and there was symmetry with Mayo.
Right away, Wolf overhauled their scouting system. The new grading scale wasn’t deemed an overly big deal, but the collaboration with the scouts and their empowerment to have a voice through the draft has already drawn favorable reviews. There’s a strong belief that process can take off over the next year.
“We just started it in January,” Wolf said. “As we go through a whole cycle with this process, I’m excited to see where we can get to.”
Wolf was officially promoted May 11, so he had four months on an interim basis to prove his worth. He immediately met with Mayo to understand his head coach’s vision for the team, identified their priorities in free agency and retained in-house talent like right tackle Mike Onwenu, safety Kyle Dugger, tight end Hunter Henry and edge rusher Josh Uche. They assembled a staff with diverse backgrounds and established a plan at quarterback that centered around Maye after discussing numerous permutations in free agency and the draft.
“I just went to work,” Wolf said. “I just put my head down, took it and ran with it the way I would have done if I had been given the job at that time. … Just putting pieces together and making sure every move we make is getting us in the right direction.”
The Patriots didn’t necessarily make any significant outside splash additions, but each move had a purpose. Wolf was determined to reward those players who had earned it, setting a standard for the future and something for younger players to aspire to.
But he knows the bigger challenge lies ahead. Wolf must keep finding players worthy of being rewarded, who will become the foundation of a new Patriots era.
Patriots executive Eliot Wolf isn’t putting a time frame on New England’s turnaround. “That can be dangerous. A lot of it is just going to depend on how everything fits together and everyone meshes.” (Nick Cammett / Diamond Images via Getty Images)
‘We haven’t done anything’
Mayo and Wolf have spearheaded a new slogan: “Process. Progress. Payoff.”They’ve enacted their process. They’re starting to see progress. Time will tell when they’ll identify a tangible payoff.
“I’m not strapping it to a time frame,” Wolf said. “That can be dangerous. A lot of it is just going to depend on how everything fits together and everyone meshes.”
Mayo and Wolf are in constant communication at the building, and they’ve been jumping on the phone together each Sunday to set the table for each week, whether it was to discuss center David Andrews’ impending contract extension or the need to respectfully release a player before he starts his morning workout. The conversations could be important or subtle, but they’re emblematic of a pair who genuinely enjoy talking football.
However, while the coaching staff and front office are aligned in their purpose, they encourage pushback from every direction whenever it’s warranted. They don’t want an echo chamber.
Their most important objective will be to develop Maye at an appropriate pace. Mayo and his staff share a uniform belief that Maye should have every resource available to be set up for success, in the building and on the field.
Beyond the quarterback, there’s a much bigger objective at stake. The Patriots have gone backward in the win column each of the past two seasons, and that’s an objective indication of where the team sits as it prepares for 2024.
Everything looks and sounds great at the moment, but that doesn’t mean Mayo and Wolf are in denial about the work ahead.
“We haven’t done anything,” Wolf said. “We haven’t won a game. We haven’t lost a game. We’ll see how that vibe is after different points in the season.”
They’ll measure success in waves. New regimes are rarely beholden to standings-based results in their first year. Rather, will owner Robert Kraft be more or less optimistic about the future of his organization a year from now?
And as the Patriots take the field with a new identity, how can they continue to address the roster in a way that will be conducive to better results in the future?
Like the young players on the newly painted mural inside the football offices at Gillette Stadium, Mayo and Wolf spent years dreaming of these opportunities and working to achieve them. They’ve embraced the early challenges and prepared for the adversity still to come.
If there aren't safe-space rooms and mental heath days then we're definitely not inclusive enough.
Lord Chevy
I'm home
Considering how much money players make - even those on league minimum - I can't wait to see the array of emotional support animals!
"At Wide Receiver, wearing number 11 and accompanied by his emotional support emu "Cantankerous" - he goes by He/Him - Tyquan Thornton!"
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Good article, the strategy makes even more sense these days I think.
Lord Chevy
I'm home
I love seeing the reports, the progress, the potential.
What I need to see is the poise when the protection utterly fails him and there's a 285 pound (or two) rusher free in the backfield. Maye could be a great pick doomed to an Eason career.
The New England Patriots quarterbacks were under the microscope for Wednesday’s OTAs practice with only three being present. Rookie sixth-round draft pick Joe Milton III was absent for the practice, but that clearly didn’t stop others from shining.
Jacoby Brissett went 6-of-7 in 11-on-11 drills and 7-of-8 in 7-on-7 drills, while Bailey Zappe went 4-of-6 in 11-on-11 drills and 4-of-7, including an interception, in 7-on-7s.
Rookie Drake Maye showed efficiency as well. He went 4-of-6 in 11-on-11s, while going 12-of-14 in 7-on-7s, per the Boston Herald’s Doug Kyed.
The quarterbacks had a strong day, despite the Zappe interception. It will be interesting to see what comes of the room with the team likely to make a cut at some point. Coach Jerod Mayo has already hinted at a plan to trim down the quarterback room heading into training camp.
Days like Wednesday serve as a building block for a Patriots offense that needs to find its groove once again. So far, it looks like the quarterback room is stronger than it was last year.
Jacoby Brissett went 6-of-7 in 11-on-11 drills and 7-of-8 in 7-on-7 drills, while Bailey Zappe went 4-of-6 in 11-on-11 drills and 4-of-7, including an interception, in 7-on-7s.
Rookie Drake Maye showed efficiency as well. He went 4-of-6 in 11-on-11s, while going 12-of-14 in 7-on-7s, per the Boston Herald’s Doug Kyed.
The quarterbacks had a strong day, despite the Zappe interception. It will be interesting to see what comes of the room with the team likely to make a cut at some point. Coach Jerod Mayo has already hinted at a plan to trim down the quarterback room heading into training camp.
Days like Wednesday serve as a building block for a Patriots offense that needs to find its groove once again. So far, it looks like the quarterback room is stronger than it was last year.
