Why Patriots players say Jerod Mayo is the best LB coach they’ve ever had
By Henry McKenna
FOX Sports AFC East Writer
New England Patriots linebackers coach Jerod Mayo made a phone call to Mack Wilson after the team traded for him this offseason. And to be clear, Mayo isn’t just a linebackers coach. His job responsibilities, shrouded in some mystery, are far more essential to New England than that of the typical position coach. But with the title of linebackers coach, Mayo extended an invite to his new linebacker for a dinner out in Foxborough. Wilson accepted.
They met, with Wilson bringing his girlfriend Kayla Williams and son Mack Jr. and Mayo bringing his wife Chantel Mayo. That served as Wilson’s welcome dinner. He was officially a Patriot. Mayo was Wilson’s boss — but not in a traditional way.
“The conversation we was having — first of all, it wasn’t just all about football. He really got to know me as a man. He got to know my family, my girlfriend. He wanted to know about my son,” Wilson told FOX Sports. “And it was just — the vibe was just right. You can sit down and talk to a guy, and it’s just eye contact, and you can just feel everything, like all the emotions and all you can feel like the love and the attraction towards somebody when it’s serious. And that’s what stood out to me most.”
There’s no coincidence that Mayo has a gravitational pull. There’s no coincidence Wilson called Mayo “the greatest coach I’ve ever had in my life at the position.” Everyone around Mayo seems to care what he thinks about them. Mayo takes care with every bond he forms. It’s a part of why he can ask so much of the people in his orbit.
“I think all the players know that I’m competent, as far as X’s and O’s and things like that. But it’s always warmth before competence, right? The person has to know that you really care about him, before you really start to explain X’s and O’s,” Mayo said recently on a video conference call. “I think they understand that I care about them as men as individuals, first and foremost. And then we’ll get to the football thing, and hopefully win a bunch of games. So that’s just my approach.”
Mayo knows what football costs. He knows the rigors of an NFL season. And he knows what it’s like to play under Bill Belichick. Mayo was an inside linebacker for New England from 2008 to 2015. He won Defensive Rookie of the Year before earning a pair of Pro Bowl nods. He also won Super Bowl XLIX and served as a captain starting in 2010.
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