Jerod Mayo will officially be introduced as the New England Patriots' next head coach on Wednesday. When he settles into his new role as Bill Belichick's replacement, he'll have no shortage of items on his to-do list.
Mayo begins his head-coaching career during a pivotal offseason for the Patriots. On a new episode of Tom E. Curran's Patriots Talk Podcast, Phil Perry pinpointed what he believes should be Mayo's top priorities.
🔊 Patriots Talk: What’s Jerod Mayo’s to-do list 1-5? | Listen & Subscribe | Watch on YouTube
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"I would be prioritizing who's helping me run the personnel department," Perry told Curran. "It seems like they've already settled on that. It feels as though this is gonna be an opportunity for the Patriots to allow Matt Groh and Eliot Wolf to stand on their own two feet in some ways and to start making the calls. And if not making the calls, really having significant say in how calls are being made, because Bill Belichick's show was truly Bill Belichick's show."
Once the personnel department is in place, it's time to focus on an offense that was among the league's worst in 2023.
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"Offensive coordinator. It's easy. Gotta get that side of the ball fixed," Perry said. "That's going to happen first because you get better players. So again, that's why you prioritize whoever is running the front office. ... You are gonna need somebody who has final say, and I wonder if it's gonna be the coach because the coach is the guy who actually has to play the players.
"But if you have a coach that you trust if you're ownership, which they do in Jerod Mayo, and you have a front-office setup that you like, the next most important thing is whoever is deciding what scheme you're going to be running and how your quarterback develops.
"The guy who is in that quarterback's ear the most, that's the offensive coordinator spot. I don't know who that's going to be. I don't know what system they're going to want to run. But if you've got a young quarterback in-house, it would make sense to me to try to find somebody that seems to understand how to develop and nurture the young quarterback."
Also in the episode:
- The rest of Jerod Mayo's to-do list.
- Likely landing spots for Bill Belichick.