FOXBOROUGH – Jerod Mayo he wants to establish a culture. He wants to shape an identity for his Patriots football team.

That’s exactly what a first-year head coach should be doing, especially one which follows a legend.

Mayo started to make their mark, but made a few missteps along the way. He readily admits that this is the case. He also promises to make a leap into Year 2 as a coach.

With six games left in Year 1, starting with Sunday’s game in Miami, there’s still time to get started, especially with rookie quarterback Drake Maye already exciting the masses.

Based on the way Mayo handled his own in-game decisions, it appears he is still trying to figure out what he wants to be as a head coach and what his philosophy of football will be.

Because now, a bit of a mix remains.

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He missed his fourth-and-goal of his last two with 11 in the third quarter of the Rams’ 28-22 loss on Sunday. That has set off a legion of naysayers — including the current company — who criticize him for being too cautious.

With a losing team and a rookie quarterback growing and improving by the minute, there was no need to play it safe.

No Maye performed a miracle a few weeks ago in Tennessee, pulling a rabbit out of the hat on a fourth-and-goal from the four with no time on the clock?

It was another opportunity to see what Maye could do in a tight spot. It was another chance to give Maye and the offense a boost in a nothing-to-lose scenario. Only Mayo opted for a field goal.

On the other hand, Mayo and defensive coordinator DeMarcus Covington gambled and sent the house on third down against a Super Bowl-winning quarterback in the same game. On the one hand, with little to no pass rush, the Patriots have to pick their spots to blitz. But this wasn’t Matthew Stafford’s first rodeo.

That turned into an easy pitch-and-catch between Stafford and Cooper Kupp for a touchdown on their first possession of the third quarter.

So what is mayo?

A coach trying to win the conservative way? Or one that tries to pull out wins by pushing the envelope with aggressive moves?

The answer is probably that they are still trying to work it out as they go.

“Knowing his personality, I think he’ll always do what’s best for the situation.” veteran cornerback Jonathan Jones said Wednesday. “I don’t think he’s always going to try to be aggressive or always be conservative. I think he’ll try to take into account and calculate how the team is going, the momentum, various different things to make his decision whether to go or not.”

It’s certainly possible for Mayo to be more aggressive with the defensive side of the ball because that’s his wheelhouse. Offense, meanwhile, is still not his cup of tea. He’s still learning that part, which would probably lead him to be more cautious.

Earlier in the week, Mayo said he makes those decisions on a case-by-case basis. He takes into account how the game is going and how the flow of the game is, just like Jones said.

“At this point, I always feel like I’m making the right decision. It’s very easy to look back and say, ‘Well, I wish I had done X, Y, and Z,’ and there would be more situations,” Mayo said Monday. “You can go back to the London game and then some of the same situations came up (on Sunday). If you execute, we don’t have this conversation. But when I sit here today, look, it’s 100 percent on me and I have to be better.”

He says he doesn’t regret the decisions he made, but he makes sure to learn from those decisions.

Perhaps he’ll find that consistency is just as important to him from week to week as it is to his players.

Bottom line, he needs to pick a lane and do it his BAND.

Asked Wednesday about the inevitable trial-and-error process of being a rookie coach and whether that element has learned over time, Mayo said he still had “much more” to learn. Eleven games into the season, that hasn’t changed.

“I had a conversation – who was I talking to? I was talking to someone and he has a good relationship with (Chiefs coach) Andy Reid. He asked him what he did in the offseason,” Mayo began. “That’s after becoming a seasoned coach, all these Super Bowls and watching like a thousand plays on offense and defense in the red zone. To me, you have to grow up. You cannot stay in this world.”

At this stage, he is still trying to work things out.