Patriots' Jerod Mayo 'Misspoke' When He Said Team Would 'Burn Some Cash' in NFL FA

New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo told Karen Guregian of Mass Live that he misspoke when he previously said on WEEI's The Greg Hill Show that the team was ready to "burn some cash" in free agency.

"I kind of misspoke when I said 'burn some cash' but I was excited when you see those numbers. When you reflect on those numbers ... you don't have to spend all of it in one year."

The Patriots are second in the NFL in effective cap space ($69.3 million), per Over the Cap. So there's a lot of cash to burn, and Mayo was understandably excited during a Jan. 22 interview (h/t Ian Logue of PatsFans.com).

"We're bringing in talent, 1,000 percent," Mayo told WEEI's The Greg Hill Show on Monday. "We have a lot of cap space and cash. We're ready to burn some cash!"

Apparently, that's not the case, at least for now.

The Patriots have a lot of work to do to become competitive again. They just finished a 4-13 season capped by the end of the Bill Belichick era.

Now Mayo, a former star Pats linebacker who served on Belichick's staff, takes over on the sidelines while de facto personnel leader Eliot Wolf calls the shots in the front office.

New England has many issues to fix, starting at quarterback, where the team could very well be making a change. After an impressive rookie season, Mac Jones has struggled and been benched multiple times over the past two seasons, casting doubt on his Pats future.

New England could very well be going quarterback in the draft with its No. 3 overall pick, so a new franchise signal-caller may be on the way.

Regardless, the team needs to make serious moves on offense. The Pats finished second-last in scoring, and a player who started the year as the team's backup running back, Ezekiel Elliott, led the way with 51 catches. No player had 1,000 or more yards from scrimmage or 600 or more receiving yards.

So if the Pats do burn some of that cash, it ought to go on the offensive side of the ball. Adding a new quarterback on a rookie contract gives the Pats a four-year window to spend and build around that player, so that should be the move going forward.

Of course, the Pats don't need to run through all that cap space in one year and can carry some over into the future as the rebuild goes on. For now, though, there's plenty of work to be done as New England turns the page.