Kelley: Does Jerod Mayo Keep Clarifying or Backtracking?

There are growing pains for many NFL rookies. This includes rookie head coaches in the league. Jerod Mayo learned that early in his tenure as the New England Patriots head coach. Isolated incidents should not be concerning, however. What is concerning is that 15 weeks into the NFL season, those incidents have turned into trends.

In Mayo’s first radio interview after being named Bill Belichick’s successor in New England, the coach was asked about receiving assurances from Robert Kraft that the team was willing to spend cash to improve the roster.

“We bringing in talent 1,000%,” Mayo responded enthusiastically. “Have a lot of cap space and cash. Ready to burn some cash!”

After New England failed to fulfill his promise in the offseason, Mayo chalked up his comment to a “rookie mistake.” The comment about burning cash might have been the first time Jerod Mayo would say something that needed clarification later. It would not be the last.

Also Read – Top 5 Patriots Postgame Quotes After Their Week 15 Defeat

An Abundance of Clarifications

There are numerous examples of Jerod Mayo needing to clarify remarks this year. Regardless of how one feels about Mayo or his job performance, there are only two explanations for why this keeps happening. Neither shines a positive light on the New England Patriots head coach.

The first option is that Mayo does not deliver his messages in a way people understand. As a result, he needs to go back and explain it a second time for clarity. This is the more generous option.

The other possibility is that Mayo realizes he said something he should not have or is told by somebody else that he did. Mayo then needs to spin his original comment, walk it back, or simply apologize. It is understandable for this to occasionally happen. It is understandable for a rookie coach to make a “rookie mistake.” But at some point when the pattern continues, people tune out what is being said because they know it will be “clarified” later anyway.

For a franchise appearing to be overly concerned with media relations in a post-Belichick world, the repeated need for “clarifications” is not helping.

Clarification of the Month – September

Jerod Mayo stated that it was an open competition to win the starting quarterback in training camp (though some were skeptical). He doubled down on this comment in mid-August, saying the competition to be QB1 was not decided. Mayo stated at the end of August that Drake Maye outplayed Jacoby Brissett in the preseason, but named Brissett was named the Week 1 starting quarterback.

Mayo “clarified” his comments on Sept. 3. He said Maye got more opportunities, which was the plan. It did not mean Maye was more ready to start for New England in Week 1. Brissett started the first five games of the season before being replaced by May in Week 6.

Clarification of the Month – October

“Look, we’re a soft football team across the board,” Mayo stated after the New England Patriots lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars 32-16 in Week 7. There did not appear much room for interpretation in this comment.

This caught everybody’s attention, including his predecessor, Bill Belichick. For the first time since his departure, Belichick used his media platform for a deep Patriots-related issue. He proclaimed that the players in the Patriots locker room were certainly not soft.

Mayo “clarified” his comments the following day. He said he meant they had played soft, not that they were soft.

Clarification of the Month – November

When the Miami Dolphins blew out the New England Patriots in Week 12, sloppy play was a big part of the equation. The Patriots offensive tackles were flagged four times in the first quarter alone, three of them false starts. It was the type of undisciplined football that costs good teams wins, and bad teams certainly cannot afford it.

Why was the team making the same mistakes in Week 12 that were happening to start the season? What could the coach be doing differently?

“Once those guys cross the white lines, there’s nothing I can do for them,” Mayo explained. “There’s nothing any coach can do for them once they cross the white line. It’s my job to continue to prepare not only them, but our coaches, to go out here and play better football.”

Mayo “clarified” his comments by explaining how in some circumstances what he said could have been perceived as a compliment.

“Once you cross the white lines, like, it’s your game,” Mayo explained. “There’s nothing I can do. Like, I try to give you the tools, you have to go out there with high awareness and execute what we’re trying to do. I’ve always said that. And, if we would’ve won the game, it looks like a compliment. We lose the game, now it looks like a slap in the face.”

Of course, the issue here is that Jerod Mayo made his comments after the Patriots had already lost the game.

Clarification of the Month – December

After Sunday’s loss to the Cardinals, Mayo met with the media postgame as always. He was asked about various turning points in the game. One turning point was the Patriots’ failure to pick up a first down, or even do enough to warrant a measurement, on third-and-one at the Arizona four-yard line. They tried two handoffs, and both running plays were stopped in their tracks. Mayo was asked if the team considered just having Drake Maye run a quarterback sneak to pick up the first down.

“You said it, not me,” responded the head coach without hesitation.

“Boston Herald” reporter Doug Kyed followed up on the response, looking for clarification. He asked Mayo if he was saying it was offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt’s call. Mayo stated ultimately, he had the final say. While this helped his reaction to the initial question seem like less of throwing Van Pelt under the belt, it also made that initial reaction make no sense. Why respond, “You said it, not me,” if he was taking accountability for the decision?

Mayo “clarified” this remark again on his weekly radio show appearance the following day by saying he didn’t mean anything negative about Alex Van Pelt with his comment.

“It was just more of I didn’t mean anything by it,” Mayo said. “I just was like, ‘you said it’ because I didn’t want to go down that whole rabbit hole trying to explain all those things. Like I just said, I tried to clarify that with the follow-up question, saying that all of those critical situations fall on me.”

In a Tough Position

Jerod Mayo has been put in a tough position this season. Not only is he taking over for the most successful head coach of the NFL’s Super Bowl Era, but he also has the added responsibility of trying to be a media-friendly mouthpiece that the Kraft family never got from Bill Belichick.

Furthermore, Belichick acted as one voice for the New England Patriots organization during his tenure. This served the situation, including the media, better than many appreciated. Whether it was a personnel issue or an in-game decision, people could go to one person for the answers. Of course, whether he was willing to give them was a different issue altogether.

Eliot Wolf made comments at the NFL Scouting Combine that seemed to be attacking the way Bill Belichick conducted business in New England. These came on the heels of “The Dynasty” series, which openly blamed Belichick for nearly everything that went wrong during two decades of success for the organization. Who had to “clarify” Wolf’s comments and perceived snipes against Belichick? Jerod Mayo.

These are just a sample of the times the New England Patriots head coach has needed to revisit his comments to smooth things over. Feel free to search “Jerod Mayo clarifies” for more instances of this happening. At a certain point, it causes a loss in credibility. And if people don’t know whether they should tune out the original comments or the clarifications, they’ll end up turning out all of it. This is not the media-friendly situation the organization had envisioned.

All of Jerod Mayo’s clarifications since becoming head coach of the New England Patriots give the perception, fair or not, that he is constantly talking out of both sides of his mouth. Is this better than when Bill Belichick was talking out of neither side of his?