It was a sparsely-filled media room on Friday morning at Gillette Stadium, as Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo held his regular pre-practice press conference to finish out the week.
With much of the Mayo-talk this week circulating around his dealings with the media and job security moving forward, there was an air of “let’s get this thing over with” to Mayo’s time at the podium.
His answers were shorter, his tone was softer, and he used any opportunity he could to shell out some version of the Belichick-ian line of “we’re focused on [insert team X, this week the Bills].”
There was even a moment about five minutes into Mayo’s presser where the first-year head coach looked for an opportunity to cut things short, motioning towards standing up after a brief lull in the conversation while asking, “We’re good?”
More questions followed, and Mayo sat for another two and a half minutes.
Maybe Mayo decided that being the open-book he’s been throughout 2024 hasn’t served him, and it was best for his football team moving forward to give the media as little as possible.
Andrew Callahan of The Boston Herald asked Mayo, “Jerod - to the point about media messaging. We've been hanging out, speaking regularly for five, six months now. I'm just curious, any lesson that you've learned about, ‘This is a better or the best way to go about dealing with the media regularly?’”
“No - honestly, I haven't really thought about that,” said Mayo. “Again - I'm here all day thinking about football, and this week has been thinking about the Bills.”
So if you believe Mayo, it seems like Friday’s performance at the podium was more about him being “over it,” as a reporter described it in the room afterwards, as opposed to being introspective about his public comments.
He did some work to back up that assertion earlier in the press conference, as Nicole Yang from The Boston Globe asked Mayo, “There have been a couple times this season where you've had to clarify or amend previous comments. Are you comfortable with your messaging approach? Are you concerned at all with how that might come across?”
“No, I'm not concerned,” said Mayo. “My main concern is the guys in the locker room on a day-after-day basis, the people that know me. Again, it's all about this game here.”
So for those keeping score at home, Mayo hasn’t learned any lessons from his repeated need to walk back statements throughout the year, and is not concerned with how the constant public “oh wait, neverminds” are impacting his losing locker room.
Don’t worry, the icing on top is coming.
“Is Caedan [Wallace] getting any closer to returning?” asked Doug Kyed of The Boston Herald, as the rookie offensive tackle has yet to return from injury since last playing in Week 4 against the 49ers.
“He's getting better every single day,” said Mayo, before adding a caveat.
“I don't want to put a timetable on it - I'm going to have to walk it back at some point,” he said while having a nice laugh before his next question.
Right then and there, it was made evident that Mayo thinks the focus on his podium performances are silly. In a week where the seat has never been hotter, Mayo was willing to make light of a problem that has plagued him since being hired in January.
And if his record was 11-3, he might have a point.
But with the team sitting at three wins heading into Week 16, it’s hard not to wonder if Mayo’s entire operation - from comments to coaching - has something to do with it.
Things don’t get any easier for the 38-year-old head coach on Sunday, as his team heads to Buffalo to take on the Bills (11-3).
FanDuel currently lists the Patriots as a 14.5-point underdog.