A month after replacing Bill Belichick as head coach, the Patriots have landed on a new leader of their front office.
Director of scouting Eliot Wolf is leading the team’s personnel department and has been handed roster control, sources confirmed to the Herald.
Wolf joined the Patriots as a consultant in 2020, and was elevated into his current title two years ago. Wolf hails from a different scouting tree, having started in Green Bay from 2004-17 and spent the next two seasons in Cleveland as an assistant general manager.
Wolf takes over at a critical time for the franchise. The Patriots own the No. 3 overall pick in April’s draft and are scheduled to hold the fourth-most cap space in the NFL ahead of next month’s free agency. The 41-year-old is expected to work through the draft with many of the team’s chief evaluators in place. Director of player personnel Matt Groh, the Patriots’ top-ranked personnel executive the past two years, recently led a group of scouts to the Senior Bowl.
The Patriots are not expected to use the general manager title when they announce their next personnel head, according to a source. The team has never named a GM under the Krafts’ ownership, and naming a general manager would force the team to abide by league rules mandating a job search that includes interviews with at least two external, minority candidates. Wolf, like new head coach Jerod Mayo, has been promoted from within.
Wolf previously interviewed for general manager jobs with the Bears and Vikings after the 2021 season. In New England, he grew closer with ownership during recent years, and is expected to help bring a new perspective after Belichick’s 24-year run controlling football operations.
“Certainly, he’s been able to help me in terms of, ‘Take a look at this. Here’s the way we did this,’” Belichick said of Wolf in 2020. “It might be something we tried and we don’t want to do it that way to it might be something that’s, ‘No, I hadn’t really looked at it that way, that’s a pretty good idea.’ It’s good to generate new ideas like that.”
Wolf has a much wider network than most Patriots executives, both in terms of other front offices and player agents. Last year, Wolf orchestrated the Patriots’ trade back in the first round of the NFL draft with Pittsburgh that still resulted in the selection of starting rookie cornerback Christian Gonzalez. He’s also handled negotiations with internal and external free agents.
Wolf is the son of Pro Football Hall of Famer and ex-Green Bay general manager Ron Wolf. Under his father’s leadership, Wolf and the Packers won Super Bowl XLV. Green Bay also followed an old-school scouting philosophy that prioritized tape study above all other factors in player evaluation.
The younger Wolf, according to a league source who worked with him, does not favor analytics in his scouting process. Under Belichick, sources said, the Patriots largely eschewed analytics during their evaluations, especially compared to other teams. It’s unknown how the Patriots’ front office will evolve in the coming months, aside from featuring more collaboration between Wolf, Groh, Mayo, senior personnel executive adviser Pat Stewart and others.
Wolf has already begun to surround himself with old colleagues from Green Bay and Cleveland. The Patriots reportedly hired longtime NFL executive Alonzo Highsmith to their front office Wednesday, and have begun filling their offensive staff with ex-Packers and Browns coaches. Highsmith’s background comes primarily on the college side, whereas Wolf rose through the ranks as a pro scout.
After interning in Green Bay and elsewhere, Wolf worked four years in his first job as a pro personnel assistant. In 2008, the Packers promoted him to assistant director of pro personnel, a job he held for six seasons around a one-year stint as assistant director of player personnel in 2011. Wolf served in two positions over his final years in Green Bay: director of pro personnel (2015) and director of football operations (2016-17).
He interviewed for the Packers’ general manager job in 2018, but was passed over, which led to a two-year run in Cleveland. Wolf joined the Browns with Highsmith, and briefly overlapped with new Patriots offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt. Wolf also shared several seasons with new senior offensive assistant Ben McAdoo, a longtime Packers assistant in the 2010s.
Wolf is now confronted with several key roster decisions, including whether to draft a quarterback with the third pick. The Patriots have several in-house free agents to address, from safety Kyle Dugger to offensive linemen Mike Onwenu and Trent Brown, edge rusher Josh Uche, tight end Hunter Henry and wide receiver Kendrick Bourne among others.
The NFL Network first reported Wolf’s unofficial promotion.