The New England Patriots formally introduced Jerod Mayo as the 15th head coach in franchise history on Wednesday.
He takes over for Bill Belichick after he and the Patriots parted ways last week.
With Belichick gone, the Patriots won’t have a defacto decision-maker for the roster, at least in the short term. Instead, owner Robert Kraft said that it would be a group effort before someone potentially gets hired to make the decisions.
“In the short term, we’re looking for collaboration as our team has a tremendous opportunity to position itself right, given our salary cap space, and we’ve never drafted, in my 30 years of ownership, we’ve never been drafting as low as we’re drafting,” Kraft said, via NESN. “So we’re counting on our internal people, whom we’re still learning and evaluating. So we’re going to let that evolve and develop, and before the key decisions have to be made, we will appoint someone.”
This means that Mayo will help with personnel decisions, along with Kraft and the scouting staff.
It’ll be a bit different but perhaps it could lead to better results since the team has missed the playoffs in three of the last four seasons.