Prior to the hiring of new head coach Mike Vrabel, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft had told reporters recently that he expected Executive Vice President of Player Personnel Eliot Wolf to remain in his role for at least through next season.
However, it sounds like Wolf may have someone joining him now that Vrabel has officially reached an agreement to become the Patriots’ next head coach.
According to Senior NFL Reporter Charles Robinson, New York Giants personnel advisor Ryan Cowden is expected to be added to New England’s personnel staff.
Robinson reports that his addition will not include a GM title, and that Wolf will retain personnel power ahead of Cowden, setting up what Robinson points out should be an “interesting” dynamic.
The belief is that even with Wolf being in his current position, Vrabel will likely have a significant amount of influence over final player decisions. Given where they are in the evaluation cycle, the feeling seems to be that making a change right now doesn’t make much sense and that most personnel moves are usually made following the draft.
Still, Andrew Callahan of the Boston Herald said last week that depending on how things ultimately go, he feels Wolf might be open to a lesser role if that’s how things do eventually play out, but that may not need to be the case.
In fact, the concerns when it comes to Wolf and that power dynamic feels like it may be overblown. Reports have indicated that Wolf has has a reputation of being fairly easy to work with, both internally and with agents. Last April, when Jerod Mayo was being peppered with questions about the “collaboration” aspect of things between the two, Mayo inferred just that on multiple occasions when reporters were trying to see if there was any tension between the two.
By all accounts, save for comments when it came to where things were with the roster as Mayo aired some frustration this season, there didn’t appear to be any internal issues.
How this goes with Vrabel will likely be, of course, based on Wolf’s overall body of work in these next couple of months. It’s essentially Wolf’s first full year in this role, which will see the Patriots use the evaluation system they developed but were unable to implement ahead of last year’s draft.
It’s also obviously a critical offseason for the club in terms of both free agency and the draft. New England wasn’t able to attract quality talent during free agency last March, with the Patriots often used as leverage as players they tried to attract chose what they clearly felt were more promising opportunities.
That led to a Patriots roster that was drastically bereft of quality additions to help them this past season. Wolf and his personnel department then spent most of 2024 scouring the waiver wire and practice squad rosters around the league looking for help. It also cut into their timeline to develop their draft picks, with several playing before they were ready, while injuries also played a factor.
Aside from Drake Maye and fourth-round pick and offensive lineman Layden Robinson, the Patriots didn’t get much in the way of immediate contributions from the 2024 Patriots Draft class. The hope is they can attract better talent this offseason while potentially seeing some of their other selections, most notably second-round receiver Ja’Lynn Polk – who struggled in his first season – make a second-year leap in 2025.
However, if things play out the way it sounds like they might, things may improve drastically when the calendar turns to March this year. The addition of Vrabel and potentially offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, along with Maye’s development this past season, should drastically alter the landscape from where they were a year ago as the club tries to attract talent in free agency.
If that ends up being the case, the outlook should look significantly better heading into 2025. Better yet, it at least provides some hope that the Patriots might finally look more like a team that at least has a sliver of a chance to get back into the postseason mix instead of the dysfunctional mess they’ve been the past two seasons.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
Sounds like Vrabel will “carry a bigger stick” than did Mayo. But don’t go throwing out the personnel people now when FA and the draft are not far off. Maybe augment in some new personnel people if needed, and secondly Vrabel takes more governance/ownership on player selections…. with the personnel people giving the assements on those players. Basically like it was with Belichick. Make personnel changes (Groh, Wolf etc) if needed post FA/Draft. It’s a big off-season.
I want someone to accept responsibility for the Ladd McConkey catastrophe! We could have had 10 years of Maye and McConkey and someone in the Patriots organization should apologize to the entirety of patriot nation for this travesty. It’s like the Celtics passing on John Havlicek back in the day. Horrific blunder!