The Patriots held a press availability yesterday so that introduce their 17 new coaches to the public.
Which seems like an astonishing number until you consider the man they’re trying to replace.
Anyway, the even went pretty much as you’d expect.
Just everyone talking in the most general of generalities.
And the core of that unit will remain largely intact.
That sort of thing.
New coordinator Alex Van Pelt sounded pretty much like he was giving us his Jerry Maguire-like mission statement.
For his part, Mayo said the traits he values most are toughness and smarts.
Not because caring about your players and having good interpersonal relations with them aren’t desirable traits.
The typical vagueness you get on the first day of practically anything.
The first class of the semester.
Your first invitation to a Key Party.
Basically anything other than Day One of boot camp.
And it was all managed as well as you could reasonably hope for.
There’s one thing Mayo said that gives me pause.
That in and of itself sounds nice.
And it’s to be expected, because Jerod Mayo seems to be genuinely nice.
And the first requirement of leading a group of people is to be your authentic self.
People don’t respond to someone they think is putting on an act.
Grown men won’t go out and risk their necks for phonies.
Besides, there are many people who cover the Patriots every day who are also nice.
And it would be nice to treat them nice.
But not all of them.
And even the semi-nice ones won’t be nice all the time.
Sure, it sounds good on paper.
But we know what’ll happen when you’re 2-6.
Or someone you drafted gets caught carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm at an airport.
Or of some intern at Kraft Productions inadvertently points a video camera toward an opposing sideline.
Again, being nice is a desirable goal.
“Be nice, until it’s time not to be nice.”
He protected his players and coaches.
And dumped reservoirs of ice water on controversies before they could turn into fires.
The media hated the way he did it, but they were powerless in his presence.
And to every extent possible, that kept everyone’s focus on winning.
If this is how Mayo wants to establish a whole new approach, more power to him.
For the perfect example, look no further than his predecessor’s predecessor, Pete Carroll.
And they ended up with chunks of Pete in their stool samples.
He wanted to be the anti-Bill Parcells.
Only to find out they loved the abuse they got from Tuna, because it made for good copy.
He was an insult comic and they respected him for it in ways they never did Carroll.
Even though he was the ultimate people person.
So like I said in the headline, good luck to HC Mayo for this fresh approach.
