Even though Jerod Mayo is taking over as the head coach of the New England Patriots, it’s quite clear that the more veteran players on the team are still very thankful for everything that Bill Belichick did with the Patriots. And they are happy that Mayo can help bridge the gap between the future and the past.
During a recent appearance on the NFL Network’s Good Morning Football, New England Patriots star edge rusher Matthew Judon had nothing but praise for Bill Belichick for the years he spent under him, making it clear that he sees him as one of the best coaches of all time.
“Belichick was a great coach. I looked up to him,” Judon said according to Boston.com. “I think he is one of the best to ever do it, at the clip that he did it and the high-level IQ that he had, it was amazing to learn from him.”
However, Mayo does think that it was time for a new coach to take over and is glad that the team decided to part ways with Belichick.
“But, I think with him leaving, it’s just new energy and new life in the building,” Judon said. “Sometimes it’s just time and I think it was just one of those times.”
But he’s excited the new coach is someone who worked under Belichick and understands the way he did things to help bridge the gap.
“I think with the hire of Mayo, bringing in somebody that was actually there for those years, understands player perspective and coaching and also how coach Belichick actually ran the system,” said Mayo. “I think bringing in somebody like that, instead of somebody that’s outside and didn’t know at all kind of helped us.
“It kind of helped us because Mayo saw it going one way and he’s trying to get it to go a different way. We’ve got new life, we’ve got new expectations and right now we’re all getting healthy and getting back right. I think when we start we’re all going to try to run through a wall for Mayo because he had our back in everything that we go through. We always would kind of go talk to him and he would understand.”
We’ll have to see what the future looks like under Mayo.
