Jerod Mayo’s high football IQ helped him become a successful leader of the Patriots’ defense for eight seasons. And it also helped earn him his first head coaching gig as New England’s successor to Bill Belichick.

Rob Ninkovich pointed out yet another example of Mayo’s leadership, while discussing how big of a loss linebacker Ja’Whaun Bentley is to the 2024 Patriots.

Both Mayo and Bentley wore the green dot on their helmets, which signals which player gets communication from the sidelines for play calls. Ninkovich pointed out that when the player with the green dot gets injured, it can sometimes be even more challenging to fill that hole. Ninkovich admitted that even he had plenty of trouble navigating his brief time with the sideline communication.

“I’m going to go back to [2013] … we lost Mayo Week 6. He tore his pec and his quad back-to-back seasons,” Ninkovich said on his podcast, The Dan and Ninko Show. “The first year, I remember being like, ‘S—, that’s bad. This isn’t good’.

“Mayo would literally [rattle off play calls] … me on the other hand, they tried me with the green dot, and I was like ‘shut up, I can’t hear,’ I was trying to hear. … it takes a special guy.”

Luckily for Ninkovich, Dont’a Hightower emerged in Mayo’s absence and eventually took over the green dot duties.

As for this season’s New England defense, losing Bentley has proven difficult so far. A Patriots team that was stout defensively through two weeks missed a lot of tackles in Bentley’s absence against the New York Jets.

The transition in play calling might have been made a little bit easier for the Patriots, who gave Kyle Dugger the green dot in Week 3, given that Dugger has a little experience in that role. However, Dugger couldn’t fill the void Bentley left in terms of run-stopping. Bentley had seven solo and 12 total tackles in Week 1 against the Cincinnati Bengals.