Before Jerod Mayo hired him, Drew Wilkins used to wonder from afar. How the Patriots’ defense, every single year, almost regardless of its talent level or scheme, maintained. Atypically fierce, always fundamental, usually in the top 10.
How could that be? “This is the gold standard,” Wilkins declared Monday, “as far as defensive systems go.” Wilkins knows defense. He shaped several, snarling Ravens defenses as an assistant from 2014-21, then coached Giants outside linebackers the last two years.
But in studying the Patriots, there was something Wilkins, like many defensive coaches, couldn’t quite figure out. “Everybody you talk to around the league, (they) want to know, what the secret sauce is here,” Wilkins said this week. “You’re looking around the league, these guys just play harder and more physical and tackle more than anybody you see when you watch tape from an outside point of view.
” Now an insider, as Mayo’s new outside linebackers coach, Wilkins knows. “Then you get here, and there is no secret sauce. The secret sauce is they work harder than everybody,” Wilkins said.
“They train harder. This building, and the people in this building, just care so much and love football so much. That’s how they attack it, and that shows up.
The proof’s in the pudding defensively here over the years.” But will that continue? Mayo’s ascent to head coach has marked a new era, where old Patriot pillars are no longer supporting the program. Some of t.