Patriots Executive Vice President of Player Personnel Eliot Wolf sat down with Scott Zolak for an interview that appeared on the team’s channel talking about the club’s recent 2025 draft selections. Here’s the full transcript of that interview:
The draft is over, and now the hayes in the barn. Time to talk to the guy, executive vice president of player personnel. Elliot Wolf joins me now. Elliot, great to see you:
“Great to see you. Thanks for having me.”
Biggest takeaway, without seeing these kids in camp here, in the rookie mini camp, maybe the OTAs, biggest takeaway from the draft on paper when you get these guys on paper?
“On paper?”
Yeah:
“Just the volume of players that we were able to add at spots that we felt could help us. Offense, defense, special teams were all addressed, and we feel like these guys could come in and help compete and help us get us to where we need to go.”
Had a lot of holes to fill starting free agency. You guys brought in a lot of guys, looked like good players, guys that you know can play in the league. By doing that, did that allow you to take maybe best player available when you hit the draft? And maybe we’re not just pecking for needs right now?
“Yeah, absolutely. It was a lot easier. It opened up the flexibility for us. And again, we had a lot of needs, and we still have some areas that we look to improve moving forward. So we’re excited about the depth that we’ve built, and we think it’s going to be good for the fans and good for the team.”
You were there on the infamous trip with Mike Vrabel down to Louisiana when he packed his own bag of all his equipment and your number four pick overall knocked him on his butt a couple of times. Have you ever been around where a guy knocks the boss on his butt, and then you still go and you pick that guy to employ him?
“No, it was pretty cool. I mean, the cool thing about Mike, too, it’s all genuine. He’s not doing it for a reaction. That’s just who he is. He’s trying to… With an offensive lineman, he puts a pad on. He’s trying to feel his punch and feel him hit and see what he’s all about. Certainly, we were able to accomplish that when we went to see Will.”
Okay, you could see Will Campbell. He’s a big kid. We all know that. We’ve seen a lot of the film. Other than what we’ve heard from him, tell us more about him, what you like, not only as a player, but even as a person. When you say, ‘This is a 21-year-old guy. We’re bringing in here. Hopefully, he’s going to be here for a long time.’
“Yeah, I think maybe that’s one of the misconceptions about Will is that he is 21 years old. He was in college for three years, and I feel like he was talked about like he’s some tapped-out prospect. This guy’s a phenomenal athlete. He’s 21, and he’s played a lot of football. I think with some of the technical improvements he can have, he’s only going to get better.”
After the second round at your press conference, you talked about pick number 38, there was some really good discussion within the room. How much does that help you guys when selecting a player?
“I think it was great because round one ends, and then you have all night, all morning, and all day to talk about it. And there were some really good debate. Some film was watched as a group, and we just set our pieces and it was really productive, even though there were some disagreements from a few people that ultimately, in the end, we ended up picking TreVeyon, and there was no disagreement on TreVeyon. It was like, ‘This is the guy.’ So we were excited to add him there.”
Good scan back, pass protection, plays a home run hitter, right?
“Absolutely.”
James White with speed? Hopefully, right?
“Yeah, hopefully. Really, really fast, explosive, just a threat to score every time, and the right kind of kid and super tough.”
Each team was allowed 30 visits to bring players in to look at them. I think you guys had 11. You picked six of them. How much did you learn on those 30 visits to say, ‘You know what? This is the pick we got to make with these guys?’
“Yeah, I think it’s about… We have a lot of information on these players, but it’s really about getting them around our coaches and getting them inside and seeing what they’re all about and hearing about where they come from, their families, their story, their journey from them. It’s really productive to get those guys in and see if they can vibe with us.”
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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.
