Patriots coach forcing players to practice in heat to ‘test their conditioning’
New England Patriots
The New England Patriots are under new leadership this season after the team parted ways with six-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick this offseason and replaced him with former Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo, giving him his first chance as a head coach. And it sounds like Mayo is already making some changes during practice.
According to a report from Mike Reiss of ESPN, Jerod Mayo has changed the time of the Patriots’ practice to force the players to practice during the heat of the day and test their conditioning.
“One example of how Mayo is putting his own stamp on the Patriots is what time they plan to practice in training camp — 11 a.m. ET. Under Belichick in his final stretch of seasons, the team practiced at 9:30 a.m. Perhaps now there is a little more time for meetings before practice, and temperatures will rise a bit and test the team’s conditioning,” Reiss wrote for ESPN this week.
Of course, this is not a huge change that fans will notice, but it’s certainly a significant sign that Mayo is willing to make some structural changes and won’t just be doing everything the way that Belichick did during his time as head coach.
[ESPN]