Caught up with Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy last week on his former Packers colleagues who have now landed with the Patriots. And there's a lot of them. Eliot Wolf and Alonzo Highsmith were in the front office. Alex Van Pelt was McCarthy's quarterbacks coach. Ben McAdoo was McCarthy's tight ends and then quarterbacks coach. And McCarthy plucked new Patriots defensive line coach Jerry Montgomery from the University of Oklahoma in 2015, and he remained for the next eight years - even after McCarthy departed.
Some of our conversation, while he was busy trying to put the finishing touches on his own staff after hiring Mike Zimmer as defensive coordinator.
Your reaction to Van Pelt getting a chance to run his own unit?
MM: "I'm excited. You're working a long time this league and to have a chance to call it and run it, I mean that's what we all want to do. I've known him since he was 18 years old. Football always came pretty easy to him mentally. So I'm just glad to see him get this opportunity. I think he'll do a great job."
What kind of role did he serve for you in Green Bay? What did you rely on him for?
MM: He was the quarterback coach in our system there. With the coach being the playcaller, you have the coordinator and someone handling the QBs all the time and that's what he did. He did a great job. He has so much experience, especially as a player. He knows how to talk their language. He's very effective. He has a good personality, in fact being a former player, he's very organic in his approach.
How do you think he'll do with playcalling, something he hasn't been asked to do a lot?
MM: I think he'll do very well. He's played the position. He's got the quick-thinking mechanisms that I feel are critical to being a consistent playcaller. I don't know if you could prepare yourself any better for his first opportunity. I mean, just look at his resume and how long he's played the position and he's coached position.
There was talk in Green Bay that you two parted ways because he had grown too close to Aaron Rodgers. Is there any truth in that?
MM: Our parting ways was more contractual. He wanted the opportunity to be a coordinator. And you know, I think just like anything else, the longer you do this as a head coach, you can offer your assistance, your security ... A lot of guys, they get to a point where they think you have to be a free agent (to get more opportunities). His contract just ran out.
McAdoo is also here ... what strengths does he bring to work in Van Pelt?
MM: Alex knows he's done it, he's been in that offense. They'll have a bunch of common beliefs. philosophical approach. He's a brainiac. There's not much that he hasn't done. So I think it'd be a tremendous resource for Alex.
It's been a while since you worked with Van Pelt, then he was with Kevin Stefanski. Any clue what kind of system he'll bring?
MM: I really don't. I think he'll build it around the players. I'm sure the quarterbacks will be a big part of it.
You also had Montgomery.
MM: Jerry's excellent. You'll love him. Jerry's tremendous. I got him out of University of Oklahoma, he was assistant head coach defense down there. So it doesn't surprise me was in Green Bay as long as he was. He has a system he believes in, fundamentals and techniques, and it's proven. Jerry learned a lot coming out of college football. I thought he did a great job connecting with his players.
Obviously, the two front office guys, Elliot Wolf and Alonzo Highsmith are two guys that you know well. Your thoughts on them teaming up again, and do you think Wolf is ready for a top role?
MM: Eliot was born for this. He always was impressive with his recall and had a strong opinion on a player, which I think is important, whether you agree with it or not. So there's such a tremendous consistency in that system of personnel, the profiles and how they approach it. And Alonzo, I think is a great personnel guy. I think Alonzo might be the best running back evaluator I've ever been around. So yeah, I think those guys ... that's an excellent pair right there.
They both worked under the late Ted Thompson in Green Bay, who we both know was extremely conservative in how he built a team. Could you sense that Wolf and Highsmith would have preferred to do things a bit differently?
MM: Depends on intangibles, you know that. I have no idea what the situation was with them and Ted, I haven't looked at that with those guys. But I do know this, they both have worked various other personnel jobs. Alonzo was an excellent Southwest scout for years, I always thought he did a great job in his area. Always knew his kids, always had the relationships. Eliot has worked both sides of it, but primarily in pro personnel. I think it's a lot like Alex, what these guys have put in, put in the work. I mean, their experience speaks for itself. I mean, Eliot and Alonzo, I don't know if you could get two more seasoned guys coming from assistants to be the head guy. I think you'll see the consistency of what you want your team to look like. I think they'll do a great job with that.
How were your interactions with Wolf as a head coach, was he able to work with you to get what you needed?
MM: Yeah, I thought so. Eliot was one of the guys who was always in the office, around the team, had relationships with the players, which is important. But yeah, I think it's important to get all the different places of an organization to work, but when you see the interaction between coaching and personnel is at a high level, I think it usually speaks to a healthy program and so forth. I know personally, I had it with Elliot. I thought he did a good job with our coaches.
It seems all of these guys, whether it's Alex or Ben, Jerry, Alonzo, Eliot that these guys are all really professional, experienced. Get along with people. They would seem to make for a good building atmosphere.
Definitely. I think Eliot leaving Green Bay and moving around it's probably served him well. I see him once in a while. I think Alonso always a great people skills. I think both of those guys are excellent that area, yeah. They're all good men. Those are really good fits especially with a first year staff trying to get things implemented. I expect them all to do very well.
NICKEL PACKAGE
UPDATE: Astute member Mark Bennett points out the following two points are NOT true, and he is correct.
The CBA does not require spending 90% of the cap over a rolling three year period. It is specific three year periods. 2021-2023 is over. The current one is 2024-2026. So, if they wanted, they could defer all their spending to 2026.
That is totally my fault. Never considered that was possible. Why on Earth would the NFLPA agree to that?! Another L for the union.
________________________
1. We've heard a lot about the salary floor that the Patriots have to spend in order to be compliant with the 90% cash threshold against the cap over a three-year period. Now that we know the cap for 2024 will be $255.4 million, we can calculate it - even with my shaky math skills.
UPDATE: Astute member Mark Bennett points out this is
The Patriots will, at the very minimum, have to spend ... basically what they did in 2021: $234,963,731 to reach 90 percent cash spending against the cap over the past three years.
The Patriots spent $234,900,000 on their 2021 spending spree.
2. But they could end up spending a bunch more.
What's interesting is that I've always believed the Patriots were a cash-to-cap team, and the previous three years backed that up. They actually spent just over the cap number:
If the Patriots wanted to keep that same spending level, how much could the Krafts tell Eliot Wolf and Jerod Mayo that they can spend?
$68,840,000
That would mean they would have to burn through $303,803,731 in order to match the cap in this three-year period.
Anyone think they're going to do that?
3. Update about Kendrick Bourne, who was at Gillette this week with his agent. Perhaps they didn't hear a good enough offer to keep him off the market.
Don't expect a new deal at this time for #Patriots and pending free agent wide receiver Kendrick Bourne, per league sources, as he is currently expected to test the market where strong interest is expected. Full recovery expected from knee injury for first game of season with…
— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) February 23, 2024
4. Official franchise tag numbers are out. S Kyle Dugger and OL Mike Onwenu are the biggest Patriots candidates.
5. NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah did his normal marathon session with reporters before this week's combine. Some Patriots-related stuff:
Q. Thanks for doing this. I'm just curious, I know Drake Maye is your second quarterback and fourth overall prospect, but what can he doduring this draft journey to maybe solidify that stance and potential
Sorry, you cut out on me a little bit there. In terms of Drake solidifying it or helping himself through the process, one of the things with him -- well, two things. I'll give you one thing physically and then another thing he can do. But the one thing physically and I know in talking to his quarterback coach, David Morris, who does a really good job, I thought there were times this year compared to last year where he got a little elongated, a little long with his delivery. I know they've been working on that. That would be the physical thing I'm looking forward to seeing, whether that's at the combine or his pro day. Just seeing if he has been able to tighten that up a little bit.
Then the second thing is going to be just meeting with teams. I think it will be helpful for him to explain some things, because when I watch the tape I have questions of just, man, he gets a lot of unblocked pressures, and there doesn't seem to be answers. Whether that's a hot route, whether that's in terms of what they're doing protection-wise to help him out, that's something when you are watching tape. I'm watching it going, man, I would love to sit down with him and go through this and say, did they give you the answers here? Is this something you could have done here? Is this something on the outside that wasn't corrected? I feel like there are a lot of times when I'm watching him with pressure in his face, and I freeze it and say I don't know where the heck he is supposed to go with this thing. That will be something he can do to help himself to go through the tape and explain it to teams. The ability, the size, the arm strength, the athleticism, the play-making stuff, it's all there.
Q. I know we're asking you a lot about evaluating players here, but I wonder if you could give a scouting report on an executive. Eliot Wolf taking over in New England. What do you know about what he values, what his process is like with the Green Bay background, and how do you see the Patriots' philosophy changing under his leadership?
Well, I don't know him personally well. We were scouting on the West Coast together a million years ago. Gosh, it's probably been 20 years now.
You always watch people. Scouts, we know kind of who everybody is and you pay attention. He was always somebody that worked hard. Obviously when you have the family history that he does, it would have been easy to maybe try and coast or cruise. He never did that. He started at the bottom and worked his way up. He kind of grinded through it.
In terms of how it can change, I would say the Patriots were maybe one of the more niche drafting teams in the league where they would catch you off guard a little bit because it was so obsessed with fit that they might take a guy two are three rounds before anybody else in the league would take them, and they don't really care because they're just winning trophies every year.
They could be a little bit outside the lines, a little outside the norm with some of the stuff. I don't think Eliot will do that. I think you look at the Green Bay history and some of the track record there. You look at offensive linemen that are versatile. You look at wide receivers who have kick return backgrounds that are really, really good after the catch.
Those are some of the traits that just jump out to me from the Packers and the way they've done things forever and how he would have been trained up just from his dad.
I think those will be a couple of the changes.
Q. Curious about the Patriots at number 3. Seems like a tricky decision because of the wealth of options that they have. If you are the Patriots, do you just take whichever quarterback falls to you, or do you really consider Marvin Harrison and one of the wide receivers?
I think obviously they'll do their homework on all of the different options there. To me it would be tough to pass on a quarterback.
You're not guaranteed to be up here again. There's no guarantee of what future years, what it looks like at the position.
I think you've got three guys that are worthy of consideration there. I go back to and I think we might have even talked about this personally, but just being in that stadium last year, it was kind of -- I didn't recognize it. Obviously the team wasn't good, but there has been so much energy and juice in that building every other time I've been in there, and it was just so flat, and it wasn't just a bad team. It was a boring team. There's just no juice, no excitement whatsoever.
I look at whether -- whichever one is there, if it's any of those top three quarterbacks, those guys that bring so much energy and life to your franchise. It just feels right. You have new leadership in place. They're 30th in points per game. Tied for last. I love Marvin.