After 24 seasons that included 266 regular season wins, eighteen playoff appearances, nine AFC titles, and six Super Bowl rings, the New England Patriots and head coach Bill Belichick have mutually agreed to part ways, per Adam Schefter and Mike Reiss of ESPN.com. With the all-time record for wins in sight and a handful of teams with coaching vacancies reportedly interested in bringing him into their building, it's likely that Belichick will continue coaching in 2024.

It's fitting that under Belichick, ‘The Patriot Way' was built on phrases like ‘Do your job' and ‘Next Man Up,' because New England now faces the big question of, “Who is the next man up to do the job that Bill Belichick did so brilliantly for over two decades?”

The answer to that question could be someone who is very familiar with ‘The Patriot Way.'

Jerod Mayo spent eight seasons playing linebacker for New England, and has been an assistant under Bill Belichick for the last five years. It was long assumed that former Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels who would be the man who took over whenever it was that Belichick stepped down, but ever since McDaniels departed New England for the Las Vegas Raiders job in 2022, the man who has been expected to step into that role has been Mayo. And now, it looks like this expectation held around the league could be coming to fruition.

“Patriots linebackers coach Jerod Mayo, whom the team signed to a contract extension in the offseason and Kraft has identified as a rising head-coaching candidate, projects to be a, if not the, leading candidate for the job,” sources told Schefter and Reiss.

Turning to Mayo would allow the Patriots to both maintain some familiarity, yet also potentially benefit from the arrival of a younger presence in the locker room breathing life into a franchise that has largely been lifeless ever since Tom Brady left to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Nothing has been confirmed yet, nor is a decision on who Belichick's successor will be is considered imminent. Robert Kraft and the Patriots will certainly do their due diligence, but if the end result is Jerod Mayo becoming the fifteenth head coach of the New England Patriots, it won't come as a big surprise.