Method To Madness? Jerod Mayo Compares Patriots Rebuild To Texans’

The Patriots underwent massive change this offseason, so it was only natural things weren’t going to go smoothly, but the start of the season didn’t inspire confidence in the future.

New England re-signed multiple players from a team that went 4-13 the previous season. It failed to sign a marquee free agent, and head coach Jerod Mayo can’t seem to keep his facts straight in his news conferences. You then add in the decision to start Drake Maye, which seemed hasty and desperate from a team that seemingly thought Jacoby Brissett would be better than the 1-4 start suggested.

However, Mayo made an interesting observation about his Week 6 opponent in his Friday news conference.

“I would also say Nick (Caserio) has done a fantastic job with that roster as well,” Mayo told reporters, per a team-provided transcript. “Another guy — talking about Nick here — who made moves early on, and no one could really tell what he was doing, and then bam, all of a sudden, they have a good roster. I look up to Nick. I look up to DeMeco (Ryans) and that entire organization, and hopefully we can replicate some of that stuff here in the near term and in the future.”

The comparisons to the Houston Texans were made when Mayo was promoted as Patriots head coach. But it was interesting to hear the 38-year-old go into a bit more detail about it.

Caserio arguably was one of the biggest losses late in the Bill Belichick era when he became Texans general manager in 2021. The former Patriots executive was credited for his business and personnel decisions that helped New England win its Super Bowl championships.

And to Mayo’s point, Caserio’s tenure started rough. He went through David Culley and Lovie Smith as head coaches in two seasons. The Texans released franchise legend J.J. Watt and traded Deshaun Watson in his prime. However, cut to 2023 and Ryans is one of the league’s best young coaches, Watt’s retired and Watson’s alleged crimes combined with his injuries and caused him to fall off the earth. C.J. Stroud is a franchise quarterback and middle-round picks like Nico Collins are paying dividends.

“Yeah, once again, I would say the one thing is all the moves, everyone won’t agree with everything that you do, and that’s OK,” Mayo said. “It’s your job as the media, and it’s also the fans’ job to try to figure it out. I try to be as transparent as possible with you guys, but like I said, I think in a production meeting, transparency is what we want you to see or what we allow you to see. It’s not giving you everything, but I’m giving you everything that I want you to have.”

Has everything really been part of the plan? That might be a generous assumption heading into Week 6, but it seems like owner Robert Kraft trusts Mayo and executive Eliot Wolf enough to turn New England back into a contender.

It’s going to take a lot of work, and it will start with Maye establishing himself as a franchise quarterback. But if that happens, and if draft picks start hitting, Patriots fans might look back on this era with fondness rather than with a cynical eye.