Seahawks: 5 coaches that could replace Pete Carroll after 2022
By Lee Vowell
Jerod Mayo
Jerod Mayo must not interview all that well. There is absolutely no reason to think Mayo would not make a very good head coach and he has been interviewed a few times for the same. One thing is he has played and coached under one of the most brilliant defensive minds in the history of the NFL, Bill Belichick. He played for the Patriots from 2008 through 2015 and has been its inside linebackers coach since 2019.
Mayo is just 36 years old. The real question isn’t if Mayo would make a good head coach, he would. But if Pete Carroll steps away (Carroll is never going to be fired for many reasons; Carroll is also Executive Vice President of Football Operations), would Sean Desai and Clint Hurtt accept having a new outsider, Mayo, become their boss?
Mayo has made his linebackers in New England better. Dont’a Hightower, for instance, is basically a Bobby Wagner-type, yet in 2019 Hightower made the Pro Bowl and had 5.5 sacks. Some of this is scheme, of course, but it’s also having a position coach that knows how to direct you in certain situations.
Mayo has simply been a success as a player and as a coach for too long in the NFL under one of the best coaches ever not to have picked up on how to make a defense great. Mayo would make the entire team great as the Seahawks head coach.