As the New England Patriots continue pondering who their next potential head coach might be, one piece of this puzzle will likely be how current Executive Vice President of Player Personnel, Eliot Wolf, will ultimately fit into those plans.
Most analysts believe at this point that whoever Robert and Jonathan Kraft eventually hire at this point may prefer to bring with them their own personnel person. If that ends up being the case, it could complicate things, given Wolf’s current role.
Wolf, to this point, has overseen the scouting throughout the college season and also handled things in the front office when it came to the team’s roster, along with last April’s draft selections.
His performance over the course of that span has definitely been widely panned. The club’s inability to sign quality players last March put the pressure on needing more immediate contributions from its draft class, which didn’t quite work out as planned. Injuries and other factors played a role with a couple of players, while a lack of development in others they hoped would make an impact this year, something Wolf mentioned in a recent article by Fox Sports’ Henry McKenna, also hurt them.
Doug Kyed of the Boston Herald, who co-wrote a terrific piece with Andrew Callahan detailing what went wrong for Jerod Mayo and the rest of the team behind the scenes in 2024, feels that Wolf’s situation definitely bears watching.
He talked about it again on Thursday alongside Callahan and Michael Hurley in their latest “Pats Chat” podcast. Kyed and Callahan went back and forth about Wolf’s future, and Kyed feels there might still be room for Wolf when another coach is hired to remain as part of the personnel department, which could be a preference of ownership.
“I do think that there’s room, even with Eliot Wolf’s title,” said Kyed. “I know other people brought this up, but I do feel like there’s room for, let’s say, Vrabel to come in and be like, All right, but I want this guy to be my GM, to then name that guy President of Football Operations, and then keep Elliot Wolf as Executive Vice President of probably your personnel and have someone come up over Wolf. I don’t know how Wolf would feel about that. Certainly, yeah, it would cost some money, but Wolf, I would assume, is also under a contract that the Patriots would have to pay him for regardless of what happens to him. ”
“I don’t know. Immediately when this happened, when I reached out to someone about Wolf, it was like, ‘let’s see what happens.’ Let’s see what happens when the head coach comes in because there was a feeling that this might not be the long term thing for Wolf to be safe here. I don’t know what happens with it. I do think that there’s a lot of qualms to be had about how the Patriots handle the offseason.”
When the Patriots were shunned by free agents in March, they turned their attention to extending their own.
Players like Rhamondre Stevenson, Jahlani Tavai, Kyle Dugger, along with others who were believed to be key building blocks, were extended.
Unfortunately, even some of those signings didn’t pan out, adding more frustration to what ended up being a difficult season.
“I do think it was smart to keep as much cap space as possible,” said Kyed. “But as I mentioned recently, even a lot of the re-signings have not panned out very well for the Patriots. You look at some of the guys whose contracts haven’t even kicked in yet. You’ve got Ramondre Stevenson, who’s had two down years in a row now. Jahlani Tavai’s extension’s not kicked in yet, that kicks in this year. And Devon Godshaw’s extension kicks in this year. That’s not kicked in yet. Those are three guys who maybe you wouldn’t want to move on from this year because quite honestly, the Patriots need all the NFL caliber players that they can get right now. But they’re also not necessarily players that you want to be tied to where it’s years down the line before you can even release them without getting any cap savings.”
“So at the time, it was pretty much universally liked that the Patriots were extending all of their own guys. But even some of those guys, [Kyle] Dugger hasn’t worked out. Jabrill Peppers, that had extenuating circumstances. The biggest extenuating circumstances, obviously, was Christian Barmore. But even the ones that were supposed to be the safest re-signings haven’t panned out the way that I think the front office would have hoped that they did.”
Meanwhile, Callahan, who profiled Wolf in a piece for the Herald earlier this year, believes that Wolf would be open to a lesser role.
He said during the eposide that if it comes down to the new head coach wanting to bring in someone above him, or even have final say, that Wolf’s passion for scouting may still leave him open to working in a different capacity.
“Well, a couple of things on Wolf. And someone profiled him last spring and even heard more recently from executives who had worked with him or otherwise were around the league,” said Callahan. “There’s a sense that I’ve gotten that he might be open to keeping the title, but essentially being demoted because at his heart, he’s a scout. That’s who he is more than, ‘I want to command a room’ more than ‘I want to be the face of this,’ or known for that. The man loves to evaluate football players, find good ones, put together a team, be part of a team. It’s what he grew up in. That’s what he wants to do.”
“Is it something I would guarantee? No. But if I’m the Patriot, it’s not out of a loyalty to Eliott Wolf or ‘look at his resume over the last 11 months’ and be like, ‘Man, this was killer.’ It’s just to say that I think that’s a department in the front office, like the analytics staff, like the sports science staff, and probably the defensive staff coaching. You need more NFL caliber players. Yes, you need more NFL caliber minds in there.”
“This front office needs to build out, so I don’t think a swap of whomever Mike Vrabel, theoretically, wants to bring in, just replace him. Keep a guy who’s been in NFL front offices for two decades, who’s been an assistant GM, who’s got connections that filled out a coaching staff. Not a great one, granted, but I don’t think getting him out of there is some net positive.”
