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For a long time, the New England Patriots had one of the oldest coaches in the NFL. And for about a day, they actually had the single-oldest coach in the league, as Bill Belichick is about seven months younger than former Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, who earlier this week parted ways with the team he had coached since 2010. 

Alas, Belichick and the Patriots also parted ways, and a day later, the Patriots now have the youngest coach in all of football after promoting Jerod Mayo to head coach. He’s about a month younger than Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay, who had been the NFL’s youngest coach every day since he was hired in 2017.

They are two of the seven current head coaches aged 40 or younger.

McVay had held the mantle as the youngest coach in football for so long, that the last time he wasn’t the youngest coach in the league was back in 2016, when the league’s youngest coach was … Adam Gase — who was then in his first season with the Dolphins. He ended up getting three years in Miami and two more with the New York Jets, but hasn’t coached in the NFL since.

Clearly, the Patriots are hoping for something more along the lines of McVay’s track record than Gase’s. And the recent results of these other young coaches are encouraging on that front: McVay has been to two Super Bowls and won one; Taylor has been to a Super Bowl; Steichen and Ryans led incredible one-year turnarounds this season; McDaniel has built one of the best and most explosive offenses in the league; O’Connell has exceeded expectations in Minnesota.

One difference that is worth noting between Ryans and most of those other young coaches, though, is that they are all offensive coaches and Ryans is a defensive coach. Ryans is the only other coach on the above list whose focus is defense. Bringing offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik over with him from San Francisco and then landing C.J. Stroud in the draft played a significant role in Ryans’ first-year success. That highlights the importance of Mayo’s upcoming OC hire, as well as the Patriots’ choices with the No. 3 overall pick in this year’s draft.