The Coaching Staff

[n1997y]

Kuhr a DC now, can only be poached for a HC opportunity.

Last year he was de facto DC. I’m sure that got noticed a lot around the league. This year he has the title, mostly because he’d have been poached already without it. If this year and possibly next are as good as last year he will be getting serious consideration of not job offers. Having Bowen on board will help ensure Kuhr’s success, and accelerate his development. It’s a great move. Vrabel has said he wants to develop players to get them their next contract. If he also does that with his assistant coaches he will have a healthy pipeline for years to come.

 

[mayoclinic]

Patriots DC Zak Kuhr's Motivation Stems From Two Important Things

The first-year defensive coordinator has risen through the coaching ranks, and is now settling in with the New England Patriots.

www.si.com

 

[Huckleberry1]

It's been talked about here before, but it's too difficult to dig up the exact articles or quotes. Once too much time passes, articles disappear into the black hole of the internet. Here's the best of what I could find:

PostGame Thread Post in thread 'Patriots Lose to The Cardinals 30-17 in Arizona'

Dec 15, 2024

Word this week was that the coaches they interviewed for OC said they were surprised the interview was more about “football stuff”.
Imagine that from a HC who has nothing to do with the offense.

I think you meant the interviews weren't about football which raised the red flag with them.

• TheRainMaker

Probably because Vrabel is more interested in how the person would fit in their organization than their specific coaching ideas. I work in the trades and I can say for a fact that having good people who can work together matters more than experience. An experienced ******* is detrimental to working as a team.

 

[mayoclinic]

Patriots might be forced to make substantial coaching change sooner than expected

The hype around the Patriots' defensive coach is starting to put him on teams' radars ahead of the 2026 season.

musketfire.com

If Zak Kuhr turns out to be the next Mike McDonald, the Pats still have Terrell Williams and Shane Bowen on staff. Jim Schwartz could also be an option in a year. And it would probably mean the Pats win the SB.

Good problem to have.

 

[DaBruinz]

I agree Van Pelt and Covington did not have extensive successful coaching history and seem to be guys that the Pats has to "settle" on. Consider our current coaching staff who all seem to have wanted to work with Vrabel.

So, Covington didn't have 20 years on the defensive side of the ball. It's not like he was a noob and had never held a coaching job either.

Covington started with the Pats in 2017 as a coaching assistant, eventually moved up to outside linebackers coach and then was the defensive line coach. He was highly thought of by Belichick and was involved with the Defensive game planning along with Mayo and the Belichick Brothers.

Despite having ZERO support from the HC, the 2024 Pats defense had Dugger playing hurt all year, an underwhelming Jonathan Jones, and no Barmore or Bentley for a majority of the season. Covington isn't given enough credit for the job he did despite being hamstrung by the HC and GM. Do you honestly think that Romeo Crennel or Bill Parcells could have done better with the group they had on defense in 2024?

 

[DaBruinz]

As for Kuhr, I hope he gives the Pats 3 years with the title of DC. That will give him an excellent resume to work with when it comes to looking at HC positions. It would be good if in 2027, he worked with Mike and the Scouts in understanding the personnel decisions so that he has that experience and can see what does and doesn't work.

 

[Ring 6]

So, Covington didn't have 20 years on the defensive side of the ball. It's not like he was a noob and had never held a coaching job either.

Covington started with the Pats in 2017 as a coaching assistant, eventually moved up to outside linebackers coach and then was the defensive line coach. He was highly thought of by Belichick and was involved with the Defensive game planning along with Mayo and the Belichick Brothers.

Despite having ZERO support from the HC, the 2024 Pats defense had Dugger playing hurt all year, an underwhelming Jonathan Jones, and no Barmore or Bentley for a majority of the season. Covington isn't given enough credit for the job he did despite being hamstrung by the HC and GM. Do you honestly think that Romeo Crennel or Bill Parcells could have done better with the group they had on defense in 2024?

Covington was terrible. He was way over his head. Defending his abysmal performance with excuses is ridiculous.

 

[DaBruinz]

those almost 2 decades, he most certainly did
what happened those last 3-4 years?
did Bill lose interest?
did the young coaches tune him out
why someone like Klemm? Why MattP as the OC?
some of Bill's coaching decisions were as bad as his draft decisions

Why Klemm? Because of what he did with the O-line at Oregon. The only reason Klemm was out is because he got into it with Wolf in regards to Wolf's inability to recognize good/bad O-linemen. An inability that was further proven out with the drafting of Robinson and possibly Wallace if he busts this year.

Wolf joined the Pats Scouting staff in 2020 and became the Director of scouting in 2022. So we'll go with 2022, 2023, and 2024

2022:
Cole Strange - Versatile O-lineman. Won the starting guard spot. Dealt with knee issues his entire time in New England
Chasen Hines - C/G from LSU. Never made the team
Andrew Steuber - OG/OT from Michigan. Teammate of Onwenu's. Never amounted to anything.

2023:
Jake Andrews - C/G - Showed promise as a rookie but was on the PS. Got injured in 2024. Cut by Vrabel. Earned the Starting C role for the Texans.
Sidy Sow - OT - Showed promise as a rookie, earning some starts. Then fell off the map.
Atonio Mafi- OG - Was horrible.

2024:
Caeden Wallace - Drafted to be an OT. His Penn Position Coach talked up how Walalce was their LT2 as well as RT1, giving some hope he could potentially be a swing tackle. Wallace was screwed over with all the turmoil on the offense. Was the reserve OG in 2025. Make or break in 2026.
Layden Robinson - Was a man without a position when he was drafted. Wolf claimed he was talented. He was anything but and he was and worst OL that year only surpassed by waiver claim Demontrey Jacobs at RT.

The list of Free agent O-line that Wolf has brought in prior to Vrabel highlights even more how BAD he is as evaluating O-line talent. The 2024 Patriots had 30 different O-linemen throughout the season. I think that the most that Belichick ever had was 18. That was in 2023 when they had 5 different O-line end up on the IR, including the 3 FAs they signed in Reiff, Anderson and McDermott.

While the decision to make Patricia OC was bad, people like you forget that Patricia had spent time as an Offensive Assistant to Scarnecchia. Patricia's biggest failure was thinking he could implement Shanahan's Outside Zone scheme and then alienating the 2 players who had actually played in it instead of relying on them to help implement it.

 

[Ring 6]

Probably because Vrabel is more interested in how the person would fit in their organization than their specific coaching ideas. I work in the trades and I can say for a fact that having good people who can work together matters more than experience. An experienced ******* is detrimental to working as a team.

That was when Mayo was the coach. And yes my post had a typo, the cos he’s who interviewed were surprised the interviews were NOT more about football. Mayo wanted people he liked, and honestly didn’t really seem to have a grasp of schemes, philosophy and concept, he just thought he could tell the team what they were going to be and they would follow.
Possibly the worst HC hire of our lifetimes.

 

[Ring 6]

those almost 2 decades, he most certainly did
what happened those last 3-4 years?
did Bill lose interest?
did the young coaches tune him out
why someone like Klemm? Why MattP as the OC?
some of Bill's coaching decisions were as bad as his draft decisions

You act as if every decision maker in a competitive league where 50% of your decisions being good is better then every one else, that bad decisions are a rare anomoly and a sign of incompetence.
Belichick made more good draft decisions than virtually anyone else.
His coaching hires were overall as good as anyone out there.

The team was on top for a very long time, mortgaged the future to extend the run and then paid for it. The decisions weren’t the real problem, what was left of the team was.
BB is the GOAT because it took 20 years of being on top before the consequences hit. Every other coach in the history of the league that won big crapped out a whole lot sooner.
The decisions of 2010 - 2019 that were good at the time, created the void in 2020-2023. I’m 100% happy with how it went.

 

[TheRainMaker]

Probably because Vrabel is more interested in how the person would fit in their organization than their specific coaching ideas. I work in the trades and I can say for a fact that having good people who can work together matters more than experience. An experienced ******* is detrimental to working as a team.

This was when Mayo the HC - not Vrabel. The candidates that were interviewing for OC/DC were thrown off because the conversations had very little to do with football. This is not something you do as a first time HC who dubbed himself a CEO and said along the lines that he wanted his assistants to carry him.

Mayo also had zero connections and relied upon who Wolf knew. That should've been a major red flag to management. This was one of the reasons I'm sure BB didn't approve Mayo being his successor. How Bob didn't realize this is mind boggling. Then Mayo had the nerve to hire Covington over Steve Belichick who was already experienced calling plays. Aside from the first press conference, I'm sure management was a little worried after that happened.

The good news is that Bob recognized this very quickly and fixed the situation.

 

[DarrylS]

So, Covington didn't have 20 years on the defensive side of the ball. It's not like he was a noob and had never held a coaching job either.

Covington started with the Pats in 2017 as a coaching assistant, eventually moved up to outside linebackers coach and then was the defensive line coach. He was highly thought of by Belichick and was involved with the Defensive game planning along with Mayo and the Belichick Brothers.

Despite having ZERO support from the HC, the 2024 Pats defense had Dugger playing hurt all year, an underwhelming Jonathan Jones, and no Barmore or Bentley for a majority of the season. Covington isn't given enough credit for the job he did despite being hamstrung by the HC and GM. Do you honestly think that Romeo Crennel or Bill Parcells could have done better with the group they had on defense in 2024?

Aren't injuries part of the game?
To excuse his performance begs the issue, simply he was not ready for that position. For Mayo he was a fall back sort of hire as he had difficult recruiting his coaching staff.