FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) -Jerod Mayo figures his immediate impact will be limited on a New England Patriots team that came within one minute of an unbeaten season.
The tradeoff is pretty good, though. The 10th player picked in Saturday’s NFL draft can still be a contributor to one of the best teams instead of a cornerstone of a rebuilding project.
And with New England’s linebacker corps having at least three players who will be 31 or older when the season starts, he may not have to wait many seasons to fill a major role.
“They pretty much have their team set in stone,” Mayo said. “These guys only lost one game last year. I just want to come in and make a contribution, whether it’s on special teams or as a starter.”
n preparation for the draft.
“There wasn’t an atmosphere that you felt the winning tradition like you did when you walked into the building with the Patriots,” he said. “I felt the vibe from the coaches and just from everybody.”
The Patriots originally had the seventh choice but traded it and their fifth-round pick to New Orleans for the 10th pick and the Saints’ third-rounder. That saved New England money it would have had to pay a No. 7 pick and also allowed them to get a player the team had targeted.
In 2007, the Patriots used their first-round pick to take another defensive player, safety Brandon Meriweather from Miami.
“We added a good player on defense” Saturday, Belichick said. “We added one last year. So, hopefully, we can continue to get a little bit younger on the defensive side of the ball.”
They might have added two first-round picks had the NFL not taken one of them away as part of the penalty for the team using a videocamera to spy on New York Jets coaches in last year’s season opener.
But that was their own pick, the 31st. The seventh pick had been obtained from San Francisco during last year’s draft.
“It’s like a dream come true, pretty much,” Mayo said. “You don’t expect a team that only lost one game last year to have a top 10 pick. But, at the same time, they were winning before me and they would be winning even if I’m not there.”
The Patriots went 16-0 during the regular season with a defense that allowed the fourth fewest points and yards per game. Then they won two playoff games before Plaxico Burress caught a touchdown pass with 35 seconds left that gave the New York Giants a 17-14 win in the Super Bowl.
Three starting linebackers return from that team. In their first game this season, Tedy Bruschi will be 35, Mike Vrabel 33, and Adalius Thomas 31. Junior Seau will be 39, and he may return after having offseason rotator cuff surgery.
On April 7, New England signed 28-year-old linebacker Victor Hobson, who became a free agent after playing for the New York Jets.
“You can’t really bring too much to a team that only lost one game in a season,” Mayo said. “I’m just excited … to learn from some of the greats in the game.”
Mayo tried to distract himself from the anxiety of the draft by doing yard work at his home in Virginia.
“I was picking up leaves with my mom and I couldn’t do it any more after one bag,” he said. “I was sitting on the porch, just sitting there thinking, and coach Belichick called me. I was very excited.”
Until Saturday, the earliest the Patriots had drafted a linebacker since Belichick became coach in January 2000 was in the fifth round in 2005 when they took Ryan Claridge of Nevada-Las Vegas. The only other two linebackers the team drafted in the Top 10 were Willie McGinest of Southern California, picked fourth in 1994, and Chris Singleton of Arizona, chosen eighth in 1990.
Mayo, a junior, started 25 of his 26 games the last two seasons. In 2007, he led the Southeastern Conference with 140 tackles, the most in a single season by a Tennessee player since 1990. His 19 tackles against Kentucky last year were the most in one game by a Volunteer since 1988.
“He’s got some versatility,” Belichick said, “played at a very high level of competition in the SEC, played against all the best players in the country.”
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