Giardi: Patriots making moves in front office and coaching staff

It's all happening.

The power void in the Patriots' front office is being filled by a number of people in a number of roles, some not yet defined.

As we have been reporting here for weeks, Eliot Wolf will run the show, having control over personnel. He will work closely with first-year head coach Jerod Mayo to craft the roster, but Wolf is expected to have the final say. Wolf has filled many roles in his NFL career, starting under his father, Ron, in Green Bay, working his way up the ladder there before moving on to Cleveland and then New England. Wolf has developed a good relationship with ownership since coming to Foxborough, which influenced this decision.

Because of his longer tenure in the league, Wolf has built a far greater network than Matt Groh and certainly Mayo, who has only been in coaching for a handful of years, all in one place. As we've seen with many of the coaching hires on the offensive side of the ball, Mayo is leaning heavily on Wolf, who has been "driving the bus," per sources.

As for Groh, he was considered as good as gone were Belichick to have gotten a job. Instead, he remains on the staff and will primarily deal with college scouting. At this juncture, it is unclear how or if that will affect director of college scouting, Camren Williams. He has done a massive amount of work on this year's prospects. 

Patrick Stewart, who served under Belichick for two separate tours of duty (2007-2017) and returned last March, is expected to influence several areas. Stewart started with the Pats as an area scout and had been in player personnel with Carolina. 

We can also report the team is finalizing a deal to bring University of Miami (FL) Alonzo Highsmith to New England to reunite him with Wolf. Those two were inseparable in Green Bay and Cleveland. Highsmith has been a talent evaluator for the Hurricanes. They have signed back-to-back top-10 recruiting classes.

And lastly, Bobby Brown will return to Foxborough from Houston, where he was associate director of football administration and did work with the team's salary cap (he was not the primary). Brown spent almost seven seasons with the Pats in various positions, including coordinator of football operations, team travel, and as a football operations assistant. Before that, he was at Boston College. 

Lots of voices. A lot of collaboration. For better or worse.

As for the coaching staff, the most significant hire aside from the two-headed offensive monster that is coordinator Alex Van Pelt (who hasn't called plays over an entire season since 2009) and Ben McAdoo (most recently called plays for the Panthers in 2022) is at offensive line. The Pats made a run at Andy Dickerson, who was ushered out of Seattle with Pete Carroll, but the Browns zeroed in on him after allowing Bill Callahan to join his son, Brian, in Tennessee. So New England pivoted to Cleveland's assistant line coach, Scott Peters. Peters has worked under Callahan since 2020. He is very much a Van Pelt/Wolf hire, which is something the Pats/Belichick didn't give Bill O'Brien last year. Peters' hiring has not been confirmed, but the two sides are close to forming a union.

There is also a new quarterback's coach, T.C. McCartney. He is also tied to Van Pelt, spending the last four years in Cleveland. McCartney wasn't working with the signal callers; he handled the tight ends, and David Njoku had a career year. McCartney, however, was a backup quarterback at LSU from 2007-2010. His father played quarterback at the University of Colorado, and his grandfather, Bill, is the winningest coach in Colorado history.