These are the "New" Patriots as it stands right now, and we'll give you our thoughts — which will probably surprise you about the offensive staff:
FRONT OFFICE
Director of player personnel: Eliot Wolf
Director of player personnel (college): Matt Groh
Senior personnel advisor: Alonzo Highsmith
Senior personnel advisor (pro): Patrick Stewart
Pro scouting director: Steve Cargile
College scouting director: Camren Williams
Personnel coordinator: Brian Smith
Note: I don't know the exact titles. I'm approximating. I would be surprised if they demoted Groh in title.
COACHING STAFF
Head coach: Jerod Mayo
Offensive coordinator: Alex Van Pelt (Browns)
Senior offensive assistant: Ben McAdoo (Panthers)
QB: TC McCartney (Browns)
RB: Open
WR: Open (Troy Brown?)
TE: Open (Will Lawing? - McAdoo has coached TEs)
OL: Scott Peters
Assistant OL: Robert Kugler
Defensive coordinator: DeMarcus Covington
Defensive line: Jerry Montgomery (Packers)
Cornerbacks: Mike Pellegrino
Inside LBs: Dont’a Hightower
Outside LBs: Drew Wilkins (Giants, Ravens)
Safeties: Brian Belichick
Special teams: Jeremy Springer (Rams)
TAKEAWAYS
Let's just break it up into front office, defense and offense.
Front office
I know I'm a bit biased because I have previously covered Wolf and Highsmith with the Packers — and I would have liked a comprehensive search (like the head coach) — but I love what they've done with the front office.
When I sent texts to both Seahawks general manager John Schneider and former Chiefs and Browns GM John Dorsey (now a senior personnel executive with the Lions), they both replied: "I love those guys."
I can't say enough good things about Wolf. He should have been a general manager by now. I think his age and youthful appearance probably hurt him a little bit — Wolf isn't the biggest person and he doesn't have a commanding presence. It seems like Wolf has been in the NFL forever, but he's still only 41. That's probably the sweet spot for a GM, and still on the very young side.
Wolf has extensive contacts around the league and he was known as the aggressive, trade guy in the Packers' front office under Ted Thompson. It's not Wolf's fault that Thompson rejected everything and only wanted to draft and develop (Thompson famously would give his front office the first weekend of free agency off because they weren't going to do anything). Trust me, Wolf was ready to wheel and deal.
"I think he's ready to lead a department," Schneider said. "I'm not sure why he hasn't gotten a chance yet. He's been around the game forever, I used to babysit him in the offices. He used to sit in our meetings all the time, back to when he was in the sixth grade. He'd listen to his dad (HOFer Ron Wolf), negotiate with people and soak it all in and learn and have those shitty conversations and the positive conversations and go through really hard times, really good times. It's all ups and downs.
"From an evaluation standpoint, has always been a good evaluator. And they are tremendous at collaboration, being inclusive. With Zo and Elliot, they have a great way with coaches where they are including people and getting opinions from coaches and what they want. From what I've heard, New England was very closed off before, people not knowing what was going on or was going to happen. That won't continue. Those guys are great communicators."
Wolf is very confident in his opinions as well, and will be honest with Mayo, other coaches and the Krafts. He's not going to tell people what he thinks they want to hear — he's going to tell them the truth for the betterment of the football team.
Schneider brought Highsmith to Seattle for three years and gladly would have had him stay, but Highsmith decided to go back home to the University of Miami.
"He was awesome," Schneider said. "He was like a senior advisor. He sees the game like a player-coach, like from that perspective, that's really strong for a personnel guy. His dad was a coach. He's just got a great way with people and coaching people up in the office with staff and just a great people person. He's a really good evaluator, don't get me wrong, but like if you're asking me like his strengths ... those two are going to be a great ying and yang for each other because like, Elliot is detailed, organized, more buttoned-up. Zo's like, 'We'll fix this, I can fix it.' He's more like a fixer. It's like a liaison between a position coach having a hard time with a player. He could put his foot down, like this isn't right. Or telling the coach you're being too hard, you're being too hard on the guy you need to find another way you need to reach him. You know what I mean? Like the background of it. Just getting to the bottom of answers for situations. It's really a great quality to have within a football team. He's been a leader his whole life. The players know he has sway."
I expect Mayo and Highsmith to hit it off.
Stewart brings vast experience from the Eagles and Panthers, and has deep contacts around the league. Also a very good evaluator. Groh certainly has his strong points — it will be interesting to see if he sticks around after the draft with the new alignment, and Cargile, Williams and Smith are all top-notch.
There's little question the Patriots have greatly improved their personnel department by empowering more people, adding Highsmith and taking Belichick's siloed approach out of the equation.
Defensive staff
Not much to say here other than the continuity is very promising, along with the promotion of Covington.
Jerry Montgomery has a great reputation as a teacher — it's a testament he survived three different DCs in Green Bay.
Adding Hightower seems to be a good idea — he was a brilliant player and he has an enormous presence — but it's tough to tell exactly which former players will make good coaches. It's a much different deal. Would like to see Ninkovich added, another brilliant ex-player.
Also sounds like Mayo and Covington are going to tweak the scheme a little bit. They might be more Brian Flores than the Belichicks, which would be a very good thing.
Retaining Pellegrino and Brian Belichick is good for continuity and their units were at least solid. Tough to have an opinion when Mayo and Covington have a lot more information.
Offensive staff
This is going to sound a big strange, but bear with me and I don't think I will be saying two different things (I'm sure you'll let me know in the comments) but...
When you're a defensive head coach, you need to know precisely, after years of study and building up contacts, who you want at offensive coordinator or at least what scheme you want to run when you get the job. This is a prerequisite of any job interview, which we don't think Mayo had to do with the Krafts. Mayo is not getting any head coach job anywhere without naming an offensive coordinator he can get in the interview — except in New England. You can't tell an owner, 'Well, I'm going to do a search.' Nope. Sorry. You're not getting a job.
And you don't hire your 12th interview candidate, and one with a low profile and hasn't called plays before. Willing to bet Mayo didn't know Alex Van Pelt from Dick Van Patten before all this. And why would he? The Patriots wiped the floor with Van Pelt and Kevin Stefanski's Browns scheme 83-22 in two meetings in 2022 and '21 (Browns were a robust 10 of 35 on third and fourth downs and averaged 5.9 and 4.7 yards per pass attempt).
If you're a defensive head coach, you should know which scheme gave you fits, and you spare no expense hiring someone from that team.
So, yes, I continue to hate the Patriots' lack of process for GM, HC and OC.
That being said, I really like this offensive staff. Now, I don't think they're going to be the greatest show on turf or anything, but I think the floor for this group, provided they get some players, is now fairly high — the middle of the league. That may not sound like much, but it's night and day compared to the past two years.
Why is the floor much higher? Because at least all of these coaches, fired, passed over and available as they may be, are aligned. Van Pelt, McAdoo, McCartney, Peters and (to a lesser extent) Kugler all were brought up on the Packers' version of the West Coast offense. It sounds pretty basic and under whelming, but considering the hodgepodge coaching staff Belichick put together after Josh McDaniels departed — I mean, forcing Bill O'Brien to work with Adrian Klemm with no history was criminal in coaching — this is a huge bonus for everyone, especially the players (I will say that the league opinion on Peters is underwhelming, and it's not a good look that Van Pelt, Peters and McCartney were passed over and basically fired by Stefanski).
And if they can find new coaches from that same tree for RBs and WRs (especially - you need precision there), now we're really talking a new day. And when you factor in that no one is going anywhere anytime soon, that makes it look even better.
Now, I don't think this group is going to threaten top 5 in offense anytime soon — unless they start importing donkeys all over the place — but this group of coaches, given their experience, professionalism, communication and alignment should at least give the Patriots an offense that can hold its own for the defense.
(Adam Richins for BSJ)
NICKEL PACKAGE
1. There's been some warranted criticism of the Patirots' process and the interviews conducted by Mayo — one candidate ranked his Patriots interview well below the rest — but I did speak to another coach who was extremely impressed by the Patriots' rookie head coach.
"He was very sharp," said the coach. "There were a lot of people in there (including Robyn Glaser, who didn't ask any questions) and you could see a lot of note-taking going on, but Jerod was fully engaged. His questions were really good and he asked great followups where you could tell he was engaged. He wasn't just reading them off a piece of paper.
"That really impressed me. That's the type of thing that can indicate that he's going to very good at game management on the fly. Seems to be a big-picture guy, but he knew what he was talking about. I think he's going to do a good job."
2. Falcons owner Arthur Blank spoke at the Super Bowl about the team's courting of Bill Belichick and set the record straight on a few things, namely that Belichick didn't ask for full control.
"I do want to make it 1,000 percent clear, want to go to 2,000 percent or 100,000, whatever percent you want to use," Blank told reporters. "Bill Belichick never asked for, in our discussion, full control of the personnel or the building or anything of that nature.
"He was very inclusive, very collaborative. He met Terry Fontenot, checked out our people doing his own references, sent me a private text, which I eventually shared with Terry that he'd be happy working with him."
3. Robert Kraft's comments at the Super Bowl about spending were predictable and much ado about nothing, considering he said the exact same thing to me last year at the league meetings — which I shared with other reporters because I thought it was important for Kraft to be heard on that for the fans:
"Okay, well, I've had the privilege of having Bill as a coach for 24 years. He has never come to me and not gotten everything he wanted from a cash spending (perspective). We have never set limits.
"You know, think about it. We're the only team in America who built a stadium 100% private, no public money. We're even reimbursing for the infrastructure. Bonds were taken out. And we had no personal seat licenses. I remember being a fan and so we've committed tremendous capital just to the stadium.
"The team is more important to me. We have never had a situation where we didn't commit the cash capital needed. And I don't know how that got started. But Bill in 24 years has never come to me and not gotten every dollar he's wanted.
"And the other thing and I think maybe was taken out of context, because we spend to the cap every year. I mean, the teams who really spend over the cap are teams who make big capital commitments to players. And so you're cash over cap, it's always got to come out, to balance out. We haven't you know, if you're gonna sign a quarterback, or you do what we did three years ago, where we spent, you know, I believe number one or two, we spent over $120 million and did you ... I don't know that it was worth it. But I'm willing to do it if we're going to win. So just that issue ... ownership has always made the cash available. Think, if we do it in the stadium, and we don't try to charge for seat licenses or anything. This is a project of passion and we want to win. Money spending will never be the issue. I promise you or I'll sell the team."
4. Great to see Bill O'Brien stay home as the coach of the Eagles. I know that's a tough job with where BC fits in the national college landscape, along with NIL and transfers and all that stuff. But if there's anyone who can make BC relevant again, at least in New England, it's the homegrown O'Brien. Hope he's there for years.
Welcome Home, Coach. pic.twitter.com/rgQZee01fp
— Boston College Football (@BCFootball) February 9, 2024
5. Super Bowl pick
Fanduel line: 49ers -2.5, o/u 47.5
I'm not going to BS you. With all the staffing stuff going on with the Patriots, I haven't really done a dive into this.
But here's where I'm at:
- Kyle Shanahan vs. Steve Spagnuolo is at least a draw, but I like Spags as the game goes on;
- Andy Reid has a huge advantage over Steve Wilks, but the 49ers have the LBs and safeties to limit Travis Kelce;
- KC (6th in DVOA) has a huge advantage over SF (25th) on special teams;
- Patrick Mahomes big over Brock Purdy.
Pick: Chiefs 30, 49ers 23
MVP: Patrick Mahomes