Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo is rumored to have a huge buyout clause in contract

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The Patriots officially named Jerod Mayo head coach in mid-January, following parting ways with former coach Bill Belichick.

Prior to officially hiring Mayo publicly, other potential head coaches became available that Robert Kraft could have interviewed to replace Belichick, like Mike Vrabel and Jim Harbaugh to name two viable candidates.

Despite other options being available, the team had already had a plan in place and was committed to Mayo and Eliot Wolf, who is leading the Patriots front office.

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According to Greg Bedard of Boston Sports Journal, he floated the idea that the Patriots had locked themselves into having Mayo and Wolf take over for Belichick.

“The rumor down in Mobile, Alabama is that the buyout for Jerod Mayo was $10 million,” Bedard claimed on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Felger & Mazz. “That’s just a rumor, I don’t have anything fact based, but that was the rumor among NFL people that the reason that they went with Mayo and they didn’t open up anything, head coach or general manager.”

Bedard tried to provide context to his claim on the radio, leading people to believe the Patriots’ decision to give Mayo a large buyout forced their hand in naming in their new head coach.

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“You have Jerod Mayo, who didn’t interview any place else. You have Eliot Wolf, who didn’t interview any place else,” Bedard continued. “I don’t know, maybe Eliot Wolf has fallen off the map for other teams and he wasn’t requested by anybody, but normally when you have a transition period, you look for other jobs. You see what’s out there and that both of those guys didn’t talk to anybody else, to our knowledge, it makes you wonder, did both of them have contracts that stipulated they would be the next guy with buyouts?”

Bedard made it clear to both Felger and Massarotti that this assumption was just a rumor. If indeed true, the Patriots did themselves a disservice by giving Mayo a huge buyout, thus allowing themselves to be eliminated on talking to other possible coaching candidates.