Edelman, White impressed with Jerod Mayo's Patriots after Week 1

“Everything that they’d been preaching just showed that it worked.”

James White and Julian Edelman were both impressed with Jerod Mayo and the Patriots in Week 1. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

The Patriots reeled off the top upset in Week 1 on Sunday, with the 8.5-point underdogs going into Paycor Stadium and posting a hard-fought 16-10 win over the Bengals.

It might just be one game, but several former NFLers have offered up plenty of praise for New England’s upset win and how Jerod Mayo fared in his first game as head coach.

Add Julian Edelman and James White — both of who played with Mayo in New England — among those who handed high marks to Mayo and his ability to get his team to buy-in ahead of their season opener.

“I thought it was great. A great start,” White said on the latest episode of NBC Sports Boston’s “Patriots Talk Podcast”. “For me, going into the game, in order for them to win I thought the defense had to play tough, try to confuse Joe Burrow, eliminate their explosive passing game.

“And then offensively, I thought they had to control the clock, run the football, end the game with over a hundred yards rushing and zero turnovers. And they did that. So they stuck to the formula and that’s going to be their identity, at least early on.”

While New England executed an effective ground-and-pound game that both ate up yardage in the trenches and kept the ball out of Burrow’s hands, White was most impressed with how New England’s roster rallied around Mayo amid a preseason rife with criticism and low expectations.

After recording the first win of his head-coaching career, Mayo was hit with a Gatorade bath on the sideline — courtesy of Davon Godchaux and Daniel Ekuale.

“They’re appreciative of his coaching style,” White said of Mayo. “I mean, a lot of those guys Mayo coached on that staff for several years now, so they’re very familiar with him. They know what type of person he is, what type of coach he is, and they want to win for a guy like that.

“Mayo’s a great human being. He’s a great leader. He knows how to lead men. He knows how to get the best out of you. And I’m sure they’re doing some of the similar things that we did with Bill Belichick. I’m sure Mayo has his own spin on things, you know, changing things in the locker room as far as what they see when they’re walking through the building.

“It’s a different era, but to me — I’m not in the building currently — I feel like a lot of the preparation is kind of the same.”

Even if the Patriots have a long way to go toward dispelling the notion that the 2024 season is a rebuilding campaign, Edelman stressed that a Week 1 win can go a long way toward strengthening the resolve of a team rewarded with a win after a long training camp.

“With the game that the Patriots played to come out Week 1 and have a big victory against a team they probably should’ve lost to, it’s great for that building. Because that coaching staff, Jerod Mayo, everything that this staff has been preaching to the team in organized team activities, minicamp, training camp,” the three-time Super Bowl champion said during an appearance on Fox Sports’ “The Herd With Colin Cowherd.” “Everything that they’d been preaching just showed that it worked.”

“That’s how you get guys to buy in. That’s how you get your confidence to grow bigger. That’s how you get guys to come in a little earlier because everything that they work hard on,” Edelman added. “They got some production out of it. They got a little taste of what it tastes like to win and be 1-0.”

New England will need to carry momentum over into its home opener against the Seahawks on Sunday afternoon. But after trudging through a 4-13 season in 2023, it appears as though there should be room set aside for optimism as New England ushers in the Mayo Era.