Sunday Patriots Notes: Eliot Wolf playing a big role in post-Belichick front office

Notes and thoughts on the Patriots and the rest of the NFL.

The New England Patriots have had quite a busy week, making all three of their coordinator hires official. The moves were an important step in shaping the coaching staff for the 2024 season under first-year head coach Jerod Mayo, and naturally the No. 1 topic of discussion around these parts of the internet over the last few days.

This week’s Sunday Patriots Notes reflect this as well, and as always will also touch on other topics that came up over the course of the last week.

1. Eliot Wolf is playing a big role in the post-Bill Belichick front office: The Patriots have yet to announce a general manager, or even to conduct a traditional search to fill the position atop the personnel department previously held by head coach Bill Belichick. With Belichick leaving New England after 24 years, he job is one of the big question marks remaining on the new-look team.

For the time being, however, it appears Belichick’s responsibilities will be split up. And one man is seemingly playing a prominent role in this process: director of scouting Eliot Wolf.

The son of Hall of Fame executive Ron Wolf, a long-time general manager for the Green Bay Packers, has been part of the Patriots since 2020. After initially filling a consulting role, his impact within the front office continuously grew and he was named to his current position in 2022.

What exactly the vaguely-titled position entails is anybody’s guess outside One Patriot Place, but his duties can definitively be described as general manager-like. Wolf, after all, has played a role in the Patriots’ college scouting process but also helped the organization and its new head coach in the coordinator searches.

His experience with Alex Van Pelt from their time in Green Bay — Wolf as a director of pro personnel, player personnel, and football operations; Van Pelt as running backs and quarterbacks coach — likely played a part in the hire. He also has a connection to rumored Patriots target Ben McAdoo, who also worked for the Packers while both Wolf and Van Pelt did as well.

While director of player personnel Matt Groh is also still part of the operation and led the Patriots contingent at the Senior Bowl, it appears Wolf will play a central role in the reshuffling of the post-Belichick Patriots: in a way, he is a link between both the coaching staff on one side and the front office on the other without having the all-encompassing responsibility in both areas Bill Belichick used to have.

With New England seemingly in no rush to hire a “true” GM, it seems Wolf, Jerod Mayo and Matt Groh will lead the efforts to replace Belichick and construct a roster for 2024 and beyond.

2. Marshall Oium is a name to keep in mind: While Eliot Wolf is central to the Patriots’ move to a more collaborative approach, Marshall Oium also plays a part in all of this. Oium, who arrived in New England in 2018, was promoted to assistant director of scouting before the 2023 season began; he has been Wolf’s right-hand man ever since and is the closest thing the team currently has to an assistant general manager.

A former quarterback at the University of Chicago, Oium spent four seasons with the Cleveland Browns — including his final two as a pro scout — before taking his talents to the Patriots. He first worked as a pro scout in New England as well before earning his under-the-radar promotion last August.

3. Alex Van Pelt’s previous statements about offensive football are worth revisiting: The Patriots’ new offensive coordinator will bring a new look to a unit that seemingly remained stuck in neutral or the last few years. The exact nature of change will remain to be seen, but Alex Van Pelt’s past remarks about his idea of offensive football are worth revisiting.

Back in 2022, for example, he was asked about the Cleveland Browns’ offense he was coordinating. His answer was telling.

“I think we are always going to run the football,” he said at the time. “That is where our offense starts is with the run game and the wide zone game. I do not think that will be any more or less. … We are never going to get away from the run game, regardless of who our quarterback is.”

Obviously, the Patriots of 2024 and the Browns of 2022 are two different teams. Given the questions New England does face at the quarterback position, however, it makes sense for the team to try to build a strong run game around whoever will start under center.

As an extension of that, running backs being featured in the passing game also might be in the cars.

“The screen game is a big part of what we do,” he explained in 2022.

Despite Van Pelt having considerable experience as a quarterbacks coach, his early Patriots offense might be built with a focus on the running game.

4. Play-calling inexperience should not be a concern in New England: One of the topics mentioned when talking about both Alex Van Pelt and his defensive counterpart, new D-coordinator DeMarcus Covington, is a lack of experience calling plays. While it is true that neither has done a lot of it — Van Pelt only called a handful of games in his career, while Covington has called none — the Patriots will likely trust them in that role.

Yes, there is a chance this ends up backfiring. However, it is not like they have no experience communicating with players on the field: both have done it in practice and game settings, even if not on an extended scale in the NFL.

5. One more reason a Chad O’Shea return should be considered by the Patriots: New England’s coaching staff remains a work in progress, and Chad O’Shea is a name to watch due to his connections to both Alex Van Pelt and the Patriots. The 51-year-old would make sense as an addition to Van Pelt’s staff, and might bring more than just somebody experienced in the art of coaching wide receivers.

O’Shea, who also has been a passing game coordinator in Cleveland, also was responsible for preparing the Patriots’ red zone offense in his first stint with the club. In the five years since his departure, the team ranked 26th, 24th, 11th, 32nd, and 11th in that category. For comparison, it ranked 9th, 4th, 8th, 5th, 15th in the five seasons before he left.

Obviously, there are many factors that go into those rankings. Fact is, however, that O’Shea’s experience in more than one area of team preparation could be an asset.

6. Illustrating the Patriots’ need to upgrade at perimeter receiver: The Patriots have needs across the board, and especially on the offensive side of the ball. One area that stands out there is outside wide receiver, where veteran DeVante Parker has served as the top option the last two seasons.

Parker has had his moments as well as his struggles. One statistic in particular should be concerning to the Patriots, however: according to NFL data analyst Arjun Menon, he was among the worst wideouts in the league in 2023 at getting open against single coverage.

Parker was open on just 34 of 151 single man snaps last year. The resulting rate of 22.5 percent ranks 113th of 118 wide receivers, making it clear that there is considerable room for improvement when it comes to the position as the team’s top outside target.

7. Troy Brown’s Senior Bowl squad carried the game MVP: In what may be his final game as the Patriots’ official wide receivers coach, Troy Brown coordinated the American Team offense at the Senior Bowl on Saturday. And while his unit scored only one touchdown in its 16-7 loss it did manage to secure the game’s MVP award: South Carolina quarterback Spencer Rattler earned the trophy after going 4-of-4 passes for 65 yards and that one TD.

8. Setting up the week ahead: With the college all-star week in the rear-view mirror, the focus around the NFL will shift to the Super Bowl. The Patriots, of course, appear to be a long ways off from returning to the game meaning that their focus this week will be on building the foundation to getting back to relevance. How? Primarily by continuing to fill out their coaching staff.