Patriots

“Honestly, when that report came out, my brother sent it to me and it was more hurtful than anything,”

By Khari Thompson

January 2, 2024 | 2:40 PM

Patriots linebackers coach Jerod Mayo addressed a report in the Boston Sports Journal last month that said he had rubbed some people inside the organization the wrong way.

Mayo said he found the report to be hurtful, and the timing to be somewhat suspicious. The report came out on Dec. 14, a week after the Patriots beat the Steelers. The win snapped a five-game losing streak.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft said last March that Mayo was a strong candidate to be the “heir apparent” to succeed Bill Belichick as head coach. With one game left in the season, Belichick’s future with the Patriots (4-12) remains uncertain.

“Honestly, when that report came out, my brother sent it to me and it was more hurtful than anything,” Mayo said Tuesday. “I found it to be, well, the timing is a little bit weird, in my opinion.

“And I feel like if that was the case, this would have been leaked sometime earlier. At the same time, I will say that I’ve tried to treat everyone the same way, and I’ve thought about it for a while.

“When people talk about rubbing people the wrong way, sometimes that’s part of the job of being the leader, to rub people the wrong way. I always try to be constructive and respectful in my feedback. Some people appreciate that transparency and some don’t. But at the end of the day, if we can’t rub people the wrong way, how do you expect to be the best that you can be?

“I would say anytime there’s change, or anything like that, it’s going to be painful. Someone is going to rub you the wrong way. You’ve got to look through all the words and really get to the substance, the meat and potatoes of what a person is trying to say.”

Mayo said the report triggered a “period of self-reflection.” Perhaps rubbing people the wrong way is one of his blind spots, Mayo said, but the report made him angry. He hopes that the people who felt that way would have talked about it with him.

“I went through the whole emotional cycle of first of all being angry,” he said. “Angry at the point where I feel like I always treat people the same. I haven’t really changed in regards to that, and I have evolved as a coach, I have evolved as a man in my mid-30s. Going forward, I would hope that those people would give me an opportunity to explain myself and also an opportunity to get on the same track.

“At the end of the day, though, some people are going to like you and some aren’t, and I’m OK with that.

“I think that when it’s all said and done, the players understand that we as a coaching staff are trying to put them in the best possible position to go out and execute. And then, from a coaching perspective, I only want people around me that are going to tell me the truth.”