What hiring Ben McAdoo as senior offensive assistant means for the Patriots

New England is adding an experienced coach to its offensive staff.

The New England Patriots have added another coach to their staff, bringing in Ben McAdoo as a senior offensive assistant.

A former head coach with the New York Giants, McAdoo is a big name even though his recent coaching career has consisted primarily of one-and-done stints and time outside the NFL. Still, the Patriots are giving him a chance at resurrecting his career while simultaneously adding considerable experience to an offense in flux.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, however. Here is a big-picture look at what hiring McAdoo might mean for the Patriots.

The Patriots add an experienced coach to their offensive staff

As noted above, McAdoo has a résumé that includes stops at all three levels of football: he began coaching at the high school level, worked his way up to college, and since 2004 has spent time with multiple NFL teams in various roles. The 46-year-old started out in quality control, spent time as a position coach working with offensive line, tight ends and quarterbacks, and also was hired as both an offensive coordinator and head coach.

While McAdoo did not always enjoy success in those roles, he does have experience in two areas where the Patriots’ new head coach — Jerod Mayo — does not: working on offense, and working with recently-hired offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt.

Van Pelt and McAdoo were on the Green Bay Packers’ staff in 2012 and 2013, when the former worked as running backs coach and the latter with the quarterback position. They did not cross paths over the next decade, but now reunite under Mayo in New England.

McAdoo should help with quarterback development

One part of the experience mentioned above is McAdoo having worked with a wide range of quarterbacks in his 20 years in the NFL. He coached Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay, worked with Eli Manning and Geno Smith in New York, consulted the Dak Prescott-led Dallas Cowboys, and was coordinator for Baker Mayfield in Carolina.

Again, the results were not always satisfying — McAdoo not holding many jobs for an extended period of time is a direct result of that. However, he does bring another perspective and more expertise to New England.

The Patriots, of course, are going to need it. Their current quarterback group consisting of Mac Jones, Bailey Zappe and Nathan Rourke has considerable room for improvement coming off an underwhelming 2023 campaign; New England selecting another QB high in this year’s draft also could very well happen.

And when it comes to evaluating quarterbacks, McAdoo reportedly has shown a keen eye. There are rumors he was unsuccessfully trying to convince the Giants to trade up for Patrick Mahomes in 2017, and he later told the New York Post that he had Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson as his top options the following year — all while being less convinced about Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold (who he coincidentally later both coached in Carolina) in 2018.

Those stories alone do not make a good quarterback evaluator; the NFL Draft remains a lottery to a significant degree. Nonetheless, McAdoo has spent a significant portion of his coaching career in close contact with the position; there is value in that.

The rest of New England’s offensive staff remains TBD

It remains to be seen how exactly McAdoo will fit into the Patriots’ offensive structure. Him arriving as an assistant suggests he will play be more of a supporting role and serve as an advisor to Alex Van Pelt and whoever else will join his staff.

McAdoo doing some hands-on coaching like he would as a position coach cannot be ruled out entirely, but it appears that this will not be his primary focus or responsibility. Again, however, time will tell what Jerod Mayo and company have in mind for him.

Another coach with connections to Eliot Wolf comes aboard

So far, the Patriots have made five coaching hires this offseason. Besides promoting defensive line coach DeMarcus Covington to defensive coordinator, the team also added four external coaches: Jeremy Springer as special teams coordinator, Alex Van Pelt as offensive coordinator, Jerry Montgomery as defensive line coach, and now Ben McAdoo as senior offensive assistant.

The latter three have one thing in common, namely a connection to Patriots director of scouting Eliot Wolf. Van Pelt, Montgomery and McAdoo all were part of the Packers when Wolf also was with the organization as a high-ranking executive.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the 41-year-old is going to play a key role in the organization’s post-Bill Belichick era, even without holding the official general manager title.