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 roster control, sources confirmed to the Herald. Wolf has been with the Patriots since he was hired 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.
The Patriots are not expected to use the general manager title when they announce their next personnel head, according to a source. Announcing a general manager search would also force the team to abide by league rules mandating interviews with at least two external, minority candidates. Wolf, like new head coach Jerod Mayo, has been promoted from within.
Wolf takes over the front office at a critical point for the franchise, as the Patriots own the No. 3 overall pick in April’s draft and the fourth-most cap space in the NFL ahead of free agency next month. 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 seasons, recently led a group of scouts to the Senior Bowl.
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 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 once worked with him, does not utilize analytics heavily in his scouting process.
In New England, 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.
The NFL Network first reported Wolf’s unofficial promotion.
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