PATRIOTS NEWS Eliot Wolf's Transcripts From Today

mike_usagisan said:

I think there’s too much smoke that Kraft doesn’t want to have another huge cash outlay to think there’s no fire there. I’d love for the Pats to spend, but also want to prepare myself that they won’t.

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I don't know about that. He has repeatedly said he has never told Belichick no to spending.

And if you look at the way Belichick runs things in NC that Belichick was either responsible for the tight spending or he was in lock step with Kraft in not spending. Although Carolina raised their NIL spending to coincide with the hiring of Belichick, he vastly underspent their new budget. He only spent $14 million of the $20 million budget. They raised the budget because they were vastly under spending on NIL and they want to be a real player, but Belichick left a lot of money on the table for spending.

But again, even if Kraft was cheap in the past, I laid out why he may not be cheap now. He has plenty of cash and the Pats are close to winning another one before he died. Plus, he stated in the past that the time to spend in free agency is when you have a QB on a rookie deal.

The Gr8est said:

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think of Wolf as the GM in charge.

You just can’t screw up the draft as badly as he did in 2024 no matter what type of system you are drafting for.

Vrabel and his team are the ones I see as the ones determine player acquisitions.

Wolf is just there.

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Disagree. They used Belichick' scouting/grading system in 24' and switched to Wolf's system for 25'. And if Wolf operated the way he did with Vrabel then Mayo had a big say in who they took. I agree that Wolf is not in charge now, Vrabel has final say, and it's his criteria for taking players in both free agency and the draft that guides them. However Wolf runs the scouting and grading of prospects, and negotiates player contracts, which was confirmed when Marcus Jones talked about his deal and said he dealt with Wolf in the discussions for the new deal. Wolf plays an important role, but Vrabel determines who comes in, who stays, and who goes.

Wasn't there a similar "Vrabel" combine thread, that I saw while scrolling yesterday, but didn't start to read?
Now I'm looking for it and I don't see it. Was I high?

The Gr8est said:

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think of Wolf as the GM in charge.

You just can’t screw up the draft as badly as he did in 2024 no matter what type of system you are drafting for.

Vrabel and his team are the ones I see as the ones determine player acquisitions.

Wolf is just there.

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I do think there's something to be said about the player development conversation, which Wolf hinted about last year and then mentioned again this week. I think this is a much more capable staff, which definitely played a big role.

At the same time, Wolf also hinted that Vrabel was also much more vocal about the type of player and roles he was looking for, which sounds like the entire experience overall was better last offseason. There was also the case of what sounded like a fair amount of hand-holding with Mayo, which took Wolf away from his ability to be as focused on the personnel aspect of things.

Again, I think overall the process was better and allowed Wolf and his staff to have better success last year, and the guys they narrowed down on were then likely discussed with Vrabel and Cowden, who then helped make the final decision. Wolf has said that while he technically has "final say," it really doesn't work that way. It all comes down to him and his staff trying to find the right players, and then it's up to Vrabel to decide who he and his staff can have success with.

More importantly, it also seems like there's a lot of trust and willingness to listen, which feels different from when Bill was here (or at least based on what we've heard. How much of that happened last year remains to be seen, but the process feels like it was much better, at least after what we saw last season. It also feels like more of a collaborative effort, which I'm not so sure Vrabel had in Tennessee.

mike_usagisan said:

It's interesting to see what everyone is reading into Wolf's comments because it felt like he really didn't say much. Here's what I think I heard in there:

• Trading for Brown is less likely since Josh's offense is designed to spread the ball around and we don't need a WR1.
• RT is definitely a need to develop behind Moses soon.
• I didn't hear much about Barmore being on his way out.
• The expectation is for Kyle Williams to have a bigger role in year 2.
• We're definitely not in the market for a starting LT.

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Then again the offense looked its best when Randy Moss was here.

I do believe there is some kind of smoke to a swap of Barmore for AJ Brown.

Give Kraft A Hand said:

Then again the offense looked its best when Randy Moss was here.

I do believe there is some kind of smoke to a swap of Barmore for AJ Brown.

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I like the Corey Dillon offense.