Rookie linebacker Jerrod Mayo talks with the media after practice yesterday morning at Patriots training camp on the practice field,

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

FOXBORO — Whoever lines up next to inside linebacker Tedy Bruschi in the middle of the New England Patriots’ defense carries an lot of responsibility on his shoulder pads.

First comes the task of helping to anchor one of the NFL’s best units. Keeping Bill Belichick content is a major challenge, too.

While Bruschi doesn’t have to worry about fellow vets Mike Vrabel and Adalius Thomas, he is spending a lot of time with a trio of fresh-faced linebackers. He wants to make sure first-round pick Jerod Mayo, third-rounder Shawn Crable or undrafted free agent Gary Guyton are all prepared to guard his back when the regular season rolls around.

“I just look at them and are they able to learn? How’s their attitude?” Bruschi said after practice yesterday. “They’ve had a great attitude this entire camp. They’ve been willing to do everything we ask of them because we don’t ask rookies to do just one thing. We ask them to do A, B, C and D. We want them to do all those things well.”

Injecting some youth and speed into the heart of his defense was clearly one of Belichick’s chief off-season priorities. While the coach is widely considered a defensive guru, he asks veterans such as Bruschi, Vrabel and Thomas to help groom their replacements. That can be a prickly proposition, but the current Patriot vets embrace the responsibility in their own style.

“We sort of pressure other players to work as hard as we do,” Bruschi said. “We ask them if they did as much as we did today. It’s sort of a little game. This is what we did, what did you do? This is what time we came in, how about you? We challenge the younger guys to make them see that the work doesn’t stop when you get to training camp; it just starts.”

Mayo clearly welcomes the attention. He remarked that “the complexity of the defense is different. You could have 10 or 11 checks on one play. Recognizing formations and all the shifts that go on, it’s pretty difficult.”

“(Bruschi) talked to us today about mental toughness and just taking it one play at a time,” said Mayo. “He’s definitely helped me a lot. Watching film, he tells me things and just recognizes things before they happen.”

Mayo, the 10th pick in the draft out of Tennessee, said he wasn’t sure what to expect from Super Bowl-winning stars like Bruschi, Vrabel and Rodney Harrison. What he’s seen has excited him about the team’s future.

“Bruschi’s a great guy. He’s shown me a lot of love since the first day I got here,” said Mayo. “I really wasn’t expecting that from an older guy like him but he’s really proven me wrong. I couldn’t ask to be in a better situation. Bruschi’s an all-pro guy, an all-pro man off the field. I would like to model myself after Tedy Bruschi.”

But don’t get the idea that the veterans are taking it easy on the rookies. At the start of yesterday’s morning practice, all of the rookies participated in a fumble drill where players careened over a man-made pond that drenched their pads. In case someone wasn’t wet enough, Bruschi stood by with a hose and fired away. Other vets have led the newcomers through different rookie hazing rituals.

“I just try to show them what the right thing to do is and what the wrong thing to do is,” Bruschi said. “From accepting coaching, understanding that everybody had to dive through that puddle and sing songs and carry someone’s pads. I was carrying Chris Slade’s pads 13 years ago. So here you go; carry mine.”

Mayo said he’s had to sing to his new teammates (he chose the Gospel song “This Little Light of Mine”) and doesn’t mind carrying a set of sweaty pads. After all, he knows that the good things the veterans are sending his way are irreplaceable.

kmcnamar@projo.com