Jerod Mayo wants to act quickly to build his Patriots coaching staff

There is no slowing down at One Patriot Place.

Last Thursday, the New England Patriots and long-time head coach Bill Belichick announced their mutual decision to go separate ways in the future. One day later, former assistant coach Jerod Mayo was named Belichick’s successor — a move that was contractually agreed upon and allowed the team to forgo a traditional hiring process.

Five days after the announcement, Mayo was officially introduced to the public as the Patriots’ head coach. By the time he took the podium inside the new Gillette Stadium atrium, however, he had already been quite busy.

Mayo, after all, has a coaching staff to assemble. And while the expectation is that some members of the Patriots’ 2023 staff will remain in place, changes are afoot.

The goal, as the first-team head coach put it, is to “knock it out soon.”

“Once it was announced I kind of started working on a bunch of stuff,” Mayo told 98.5 The Sports Hub shortly after his introductory press conference.

“It happened very fast. I’m excited. I’m excited to just get busy — get busy, get the coaching staff put together. Make sure we’re squared away. And, honestly, right now is about communication from a leadership standpoint. I just want to know everyone exactly what they have to do, and that’s some of the things that I’ll be working on coming up shortly.”

A former linebacker for the Patriots, Mayo joined Bill Belichick’s staff as inside linebackers coach in 2019. Over the next five seasons, he remained a position coach in title but grew his fingerprint on one of the league’s best defenses: together with fellow assistant Steve Belichick, he was effectively running the show by 2021.

Now, his area of responsibility extends far beyond New England’s defense. And in order to make sure he is putting himself and the team in the best possible position, he already started working.

Mayo reached out to Carolina Panthers outside linebackers coach Tem Lukabu and Atlanta Falcons special teams coordinator Marquice Williams about roles on his staff. Other inquiries and, eventually, moves will follow.

When asked about a timeline on Thursday, he gave a pretty clear answer.

“ASAP,” he said. “I want to knock that out of the park early and get running. You have to think about the Combine, the draft, the all-star games, things like that. I think it’s important to knock it out soon.”

The first steps toward preparing for those events have already been taken. Besides reaching out to the aforementioned Lukabu and Williams, the Patriots have reportedly also offered Bill Belichick’s sons, Steve and Brian, an opportunity to remain with the organization. In addition, wide receivers coach Troy Brown has been picked to serve as offensive coordinator at the Senior Bowl in early February.

Obviously, though, plenty of loose ends remain. For now, Mayo is just trying to get a hang of being a head coach.

What he does have, however, is a clear vision of what his staff should be capable of.

“One thing I would say with all of my coaches, the number one thing is developing people,” he said.

“To me, whether we’re talking offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, special teams coordinator, all that stuff is under eval, and my number one thing is I want to bring in developers.”