TRANSCRIPT: Jerod Mayo’s Appearance on WEEI On Monday
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Here’s what New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo had to say following his appearance on The Greg Hill Show on WEEI on Monday:
On Wiggy [Jermaine Wiggins] giving them an ‘A’:
“Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. Now I can sleep well at night, Wiggy. Thank you.”
You’re welcome. And I’m a hard grader, too:
“Honestly, it’s hard to give a grade until you really see what the players are capable of. But I understand. People love that stuff.”
On the fact they picked guys who could help them on offense:
“No, that’s right. And I would say, Elliott [Wolf] and Gro [Matt Groh] and Zo [Alonzo Highsmith] and all those guys over there really did a good job, and the coaches did a good job identifying some of the holes that we have in our roster. And we tried to address those and thought those guys did a good job.”
On if he agrees with Bill Belichick that Drake Maye needs to work on his footwork:
“Yeah. Look, my thing with Drake, we understand the player on and off the field. We understand that none of these guys are perfect. I mean, you can go all the way up to number one, two, or three. It doesn’t really matter. None of these quarterbacks are coming in here ready to play. And I actually think Coach said that, the only player that he knows that was ready to play once they came to the league was Lawrence Taylor. And so it’s very hard to sit here and say, ‘All right, this guy is going to play.’ What I will say is he’s going to compete. We have a solid quarterback room, in our opinion, and they’re going to compete, and the best player will play.”
On what made them comfortable with the quarterbacks to sit there and go ahead and select whoever fell to them at three:
“Yeah, just through a lot of film study, a lot of interactions with these guys and their families and the people that are around them. We felt very comfortable. We knew all along, and I think you guys, well, hopefully you did, that Caleb [Williams] was going to go one, and then it came down to really the [Jayden] Daniels, the Drake Maye’s of the world. At the end there, we felt pretty comfortable about both of them.”
On whether or not there was any discussion about J.J. McCarthy:
“No, there was absolutely discussion, and you could throw [Michael] Penix in there as well. One thing we said, when we bring guys in on the 30 visits, we’re not trying to mislead the public. We’re not trying to get cute with who we bring in. We had genuine interest in every player that we brought into the building and those exposures are very important throughout the evaluation process.”
On the quarterback room competition and if it helps when a player can come in and show that he can be the guy:
“Yeah, but I would also say that every individual is different. We’ll see when he comes in. Right now, we don’t really know much about him as far as just playing at this level. But once again, look they’re going to compete. Jacoby has played a lot of football in this league. Zappe’s played football in this league, and Drake hasn’t. So he has to come in and not only show us that he’s capable of performing on the field, but also really taking a leadership role with the young guys and hopefully the rest of the team going forward.”
On the “Burning some cash” comment at the end of their first interview:
“That was a rookie mistake. That was a rookie mistake by me. You know, as soon as I got downstairs, Stacey [James] slapped me in the head like, ‘What are you doing?'”
“You understand what I meant, though. What I really meant. Look, we’re going to be, obviously, smart with cash and smart with acquisitions. I was just very excited. At the same time. I feel like we’re building a roster the way we want to build it.”
On the fact they didn’t really burn a lot of cash:
“That’s right. Because we have to be smart about… We didn’t, once again, the burning of cash was a mistake. In saying that, we do have cash, and we’ll spend it on guys that we think will make this team better.”
On Tom Brady saying he’d come back for the right situation to the Patriots, and if the door was open if Brady decides to put his cleats back on:
“Look, I love Tom, and the door is always open if he wants to come in here and coach. But as far as going on the field, I don’t know. But if he comes in here, once again, going back to the, ‘Hey, the best player will play.’ You got to come here and compete. And he loves competition. I doubt he’s going to be walking through his doors anytime soon.”
On the fact Brady may not be up for training camp:
“Yeah, exactly. That’s all right. He’ll be one of those guys if something happens in November and we’re in a good position, ‘Hey, come in.’ No, I’m good on that.”
On the fact he’s started working with his coaches and the adjustments he’s needed to make:
“Yeah, it’s a great question. And I kind of go back to going from a player to obviously working in business and then coming back and coaching guys in the linebacker room that I played with. That was a transition. I mean, it was difficult at times, right? And then all of a sudden, you start running the defensive meetings, and once again, that becomes a problem. And now the ‘aha’ moment for me as far as the head coach is concerned, is when I walked out there during that voluntary veteran mini-camp and was able to just coach and move around. And I always found myself hovering back to the defensive side of the ball. But then I was like, ‘All right, I got my head coach on. I got to go over to the offensive side as well and also special teams.’ But it’s been great so far. But once again, realistically, we’re 0-0. All of us are still in the honeymoon phase, coaches, players, everyone. But I will say the guys are out here working hard. We have great attendance amongst all the guys, and the coaches seem to be gelling well, not only with each other, but also the players. So we’ll see as we continue to go on this journey.”
On what he saw in Joe Milton that led the Patriots to drafting him:
“Joe has a lot of physical tools. I mean, this guy is big, has a cannon for an arm, and we just want to see what it looks like and honestly, you can never have too many good players on the roster. And another thing that was under consideration is, look, he’ll give us a good look defensively. We start going offense versus defense, having a guy that size, but we’re going to play some of those guys as well. So we’ll see what he can do. We’ll see if he can develop, and just excited to get him out there on the field.”
On him being on the show and what they decided to call it:
“Mayo, Monday. Mayo, Monday. I thought. It could be Maye, Maye, Mondays as well if Drake is on this show. I don’t know. Maybe Dash it with an E and an ‘O’. I don’t know. You guys have marketing people there.”
On the fact Bill Belichick used to help create promos:
“There you go.”
On if he got to watch any of Belichick on Pat McAfee’s show:
“No, I did not. Look, he’s tremendous. When you get a chance to learn from a guy like that, and I’m sure the fans are very excited to hear from a guy like that and see the other side of Bill, I think it’s great. I did not watch it, though. I was kind of busy during that time.”
On him talking over the weekend about Belichick letting the coaches participate in the draft preparation:
“Yeah, it was great. Honestly, it was a great way to learn, watching different positions and grading them and writing reports. And Elliot, he would edit the report because it was my first time, and it would come back with all this red ink on it and stuff like he’s the English teacher. But it was a great experience. And I would say we did it a little bit more than we’ve done in the past, this past draft. So I love it. I think the coaches love it as well. And those guys felt heard, which is important.”
On Maye having the ability to make plays with his legs and what he expects from his offense with a QB that has the ability to do things they didn’t have last year:
“I think you hit it on the head as far as those, what we call, off-script plays. From a defensive perspective, you can say you’re playing zone, but as soon as a quarterback gets outside the pocket, everything turns into man-to-man. Does that make sense? And so when you have a quarterback that can move around, it just puts a lot of stress on the defense. And look, as far as running boots and things like that, that’s a strength of, I would say, a few guys in that quarterback room. And those extended plays will definitely cause some stress on the defense. And some of that stuff, it’s not about what’s in the playbook, it’s about what they do on the field.”
On free agency, if there was an issue playing here because of the millionaire’s tax, because of where the team is, or if it just came down to they didn’t see the value in what the player was looking for:
“We didn’t talk to the free agents about those things you talked about. Look, I put my player’s hat on real quick. Those are things that a free agent has to think about. You talked about taxes, you talk about weather, you talk about all that stuff. And once again, I think oftentimes people forget about the wives and the girlfriends and the families. And they have a lot… that’s the one thing I learned when I became a head coach. I was like, Man, these wives run the world. These girlfriends run the world.”
On the fact it happens everywhere. “It’s a life thing.”
“I know. It is what it is, man. But you talk about the influence on a big move for the family. Man, that’s a tough one. But look, at the end of the day, it comes down to money. It comes down to you have to be comfortable with the place. You have to be comfortable with the roster. And that’s the beauty of free agency.”
On the NFLPA Report and the fact it couldn’t have helped and if the team has taken it upon itself to rectify the issues listed on there:
“Yeah, we’re working on it. The one thing I would say about those grades, honestly, it’s what part of the season are those grades taken? And then, at the end of the day – I’ve been saying at the end of the day all the time, I got to stop that – but what I will say is, look, we’re trying to fix all those things. At the same time, we have plans going forward for something much larger, which hopefully the players will get a chance to kind of see what that looks like in the future. But at the same time, we’re going to rectify the things on that report card.”
On balancing being a coach against having also been a player:
“Yeah, I’m going to have my coach’s hat on for the majority of the time. What I will say is, especially on the defensive side of the ball, taking some of those philosophies that we had on the defensive side of the ball and really spreading it through the rest of the team. We brought in 17 new coaches all with great energy, but they also have to be firm. We have things that we need to get done. Accountability amongst the players is always a big thing. Whether you have a player hat on or a coach’s hat, we’re all responsible and our job as coaches are to put those guys in the right place so they can go out there and make plays. I always say, ‘Look, here’s your canvas. I don’t care what picture you paint on the canvas, just stay on the canvas.’ And as long as we do that, I think we’ll be going in the right direction.”
On being relatable to the players, and whether or not he’ll be vaping on the sidelines like Mike McDaniel:
“No, I won’t be vaping on the sideline or anything like that. I do think my experience, not only in football, but also in business, has definitely helped me get to where I am. I know the players, when we’re not talking about football, which I think is important, especially with this generation, being able to talk about different things is important, and really showing the players that you care about them and their development, not only on the field, but off the field. So that’s the way I kind of think about it. And once again, look, all these players are at different points in their lives and their careers, and you have to be able to kind of go up and down the roster and be able to find something that you can relate to or something that you can mentor a guy on. And these guys have been great. And honestly, I’ve been learning a lot from our coaches that have been other places as well. It’s all about development and just having that growth mindset.”
On if he watched The Dynasty and if he’d be willing to give that a grade on this show:
“I did not watch the dynasty. I’ve been honestly just in the office watching these players. So I’m just honestly, at this point, just trying to take a deep breath. We got through the combine and the scouting process and the draft, and I got to catch up on some other shows before I watched that one.
“I’m a big Veep guy. You guys watch Curb Your Enthusiasm and Veep. Two great shows.”
On if he thinks this team is better today than it was at the end of last season and if he feels they’ll be better than a four-win team:
“100%. I think this team is better. But once again, we have to see when we go through training camp, and the preseason. I will say we have, going back to the coaches, I feel very good, very confident about the coaches that we have on the staff and their competency and understanding of the X’s and O’s. We’re all on the same page. So I feel good about it.”
Here’s the full video:
(Editor’s Note: This transcript is done manually via the available footage and is subject to typos. If you spot something, please take a moment to let me know in the comments below.)
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