MORSE: Introducing the New Patriots Front Office

The Wolf Pack – that’s what they will be known as:

Director of player personnel: Eliot Wolf (officially listed as director of scouting) / Defacto GM

Eliot Wolf’s fingerprints are all over the Coaching hires. The four-person interview team was Jerod Mayo, Eliot Wolf, Matt Groh and Robyn Glaser. However, the Alex Van Pelt hiring may have been done without Matt Groh unless he participated by Zoom, because he was in Mobile Alabama for the Senior Bowl. His experience with the Green Bay Packers is well-documented.

Several of these hires have Green Bay ties to Wolf in Alex Van Pelt, Ben McAdoo, Jerry Montgomery, and TC McCartney.

I am happy with the elevation of Wolf. He is the closest thing we have had to a real GM in 30 years. He also has extensive experience but just not the title of GM. His contacts throughout the league are extensive and he is not really a rookie GM. Wolf is just 41 years old but has 20 years of steadily increasing responsibilities in NFL Front Offices. His 14 years with Green Bay saw him rise from Pro Personnel Assistant to Director of Football Operations. He left Green Bay to take the Assistant GM position at Cleveland. He was there for just a year, and it’s believed it was their overreliance on analytics that drove him away. He signed on as a Consultant with the Patriots in 2020 and has moved up to his present position.

Senior Personnel Executive – Alonzo Highsmith – A great hire by all reports. Highsmith has the ability to relate to young players and gives Wolf another veteran voice. Highsmith was on the Cleveland staff when Wolf was GM.

Senior personnel adviser: Patrick Stewart – He will bounce between both Pro Scouting and College scouting as Wolf sees fit. He reports directly to Wolf. Stewart was originally part of the Patriots organization but left to join Carolina as Assistant GM.

Director of scouting: Matt Groh (officially listed as director of player personnel) He was the Director of College Scouting back in 2021. I view this as a step down going from Director of Pro Personnel back to College Scouting. Groh is a Belichick man and owes everything to Bill getting him into coaching. His dad Al Groh, is a friend of Belichick.

Director of college scouting: Camren Williams – He was at the Senior Bowl along with Groh and a 10-person team covering the Senior Bowl like a blanket.

Assistant Director of Scouting – Marshall Oium – He was elevated to this position last year. He was a Pro Scout but worked closely with Eliot Wolf.

Associate Director of Football Operation? – Bobby Brown – He was with Houston for a year in their salary cap department. Brown was previously with the Patriots for nearly seven years, working in roles that included associate director of football administration, coordinator of football operations and team travel and as a football operation assistant. He started as a football equipment department at Boston College.

Director of Pro Scouting – Steve Cargile – is a bright young star in the Patriots scouting department. The Columbia educated former NFL Safety has worked in the Patriots scouting department since 2011 and has steadily risen to his current position.

Personnel Coordinator – Brian Smith

Scouting Assistant – Maya Ann Callender – There is a great story on the Patriots website International Women in Sports Day: Maya Ann Callender’s journey to Patriots scouting staff about Callender. She is very qualified to be in the position she is in and has taken advantage of numerous opportunities she has been given to create quite the resume.

Tony Kinkela – National Scout

Matt Evans – National Scout

JT Hall – Area Scout

Justin Hickman – Area Scout

Taylor Redd – Area Scout

John Hinch – Area Scout

Highsmith in charge of the transition.

The Patriots are reportedly changing their talent grading system.

Alonzo Highsmith, who the Patriots hired from the University of Miami to join their front office, will “help the team transition its grading system,” CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones reported Saturday.

A story was floated last week by WEEI’s Adam Jones that Highsmith was brought in to completely revamp the Belichick College and Pro scouting evaluation system. Belichick system is dead and it falsely rewards certain players which skews the results. Players like Tavon Wilson who was taken in the 2^nd round was not on anyone’s draft list. N’Keal Harry and Cole Strange are two more reaches that come to mind. Strange was rated as a 3^rd round pick. This past year Marte Mapu was no better than a 5^th round pick.

Even though the Patriots hired from within to replace both of Bill Belichick’s roles, they might be taking a different approach to conducting business, at least when it comes to player personnel.

What Highsmith’s grading system will look like is unknown, but Jones speculated that it could look similar to the Packers’ grading system from when he and Eliot Wolf were together in Green Bay. The Packers’ grading system valued athleticism, explosiveness, and versatility while the Patriots’ grading system under Belichick was “more stringent” on determining if players were fits, according to Jones.

The Patriots have had a notoriously small draft board (75 players) and you see the Patriots taking players at the end of the draft that would have been priority Undrafted Free Agents because they have run out of players on their draft board.

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About Mark Morse

Merrimack Valley native and lifelong fan of the New England Patriots. My earliest memories of the Patriots were attending as a child with my dad, the off-season practice at Phillips Academy. I was at the Patriots game at Harvard Stadium in 1970 where Bob “Harpo” Gladieux was called out of the stands by the stadium announcer over the PA to play in the game. Analyzing the draft since ESPN first started to televise it in 1980 and former writer for the Lowell Sun Newspaper.

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