Alpha Wolf: Eliot Wolf named de facto GM
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
- Start date
There was also some buzz from Curran a few months ago that they were contemplating bringing in a football overlord. So even before the official search and Rooney Rule compliance, they may have wanted to see how Wolf handled the offseason and draft before making that call.
- New England Patriots (2020–2021)
Consultant - New England Patriots (2022–2023)
Director of scouting
| Rnd | Player | Pick | Pos | Yrs | From | To | College/Univ |
| 1 | Christian Gonzalez | 17 | DB | 2 | 2023 | 2024 | Oregon |
| 2 | Keion White | 46 | DL | 2 | 2023 | 2024 | Georgia Tech |
| 3 | Marte Mapu | 76 | DB | 2 | 2023 | 2024 | Sacramento St. |
| 4 | Jake Andrews | 107 | OL | 1 | 2023 | 2023 | Troy |
| 4 | Chad Ryland | 112 | K | 2 | 2023 | 2024 | Maryland |
| 4 | Sidy Sow | 117 | OL | 2 | 2023 | 2024 | Eastern Michigan |
| 5 | Atonio Mafi | 144 | OL | 1 | 2023 | 2023 | UCLA |
| 6 | Kayshon Boutte | 187 | WR | 2 | 2023 | 2024 | LSU |
| 6 | Bryce Baringer | 192 | P | 2 | 2023 | 2024 | Michigan St. |
| 6 | Demario Douglas | 210 | WR | 2 | 2023 | 2024 | Liberty |
| 6 | Ameer Speed | 214 | CB | 2 | 2023 | 2024 | Michigan St. |
| 7 | Isaiah Bolden | 245 | CB | 1 | 2024 | 2024 | Jackson St. |
| Rnd | Player | Pick | Pos | Yrs | From | To | College/Univ |
| 1 | Cole Strange | 29 | OL | 2 | 2022 | 2023 | Chattanooga |
| 2 | Tyquan Thornton | 50 | WR | 3 | 2022 | 2024 | Baylor |
| 3 | Marcus Jones | 85 | CB | 3 | 2022 | 2024 | Houston |
| 4 | Jack Jones | 121 | DB | 3 | 2022 | 2024 | Arizona St. |
| 4 | Pierre Strong | 127 | RB | 3 | 2022 | 2024 | South Dakota St. |
| 4 | Bailey Zappe | 137 | QB | 2 | 2022 | 2023 | Western Kentucky |
| 6 | Kevin Harris | 183 | RB | 2 | 2022 | 2023 | South Carolina |
| 6 | Sam Roberts | 200 | DE | 2 | 2022 | 2023 | NW Missouri St. |
| 6 | Chasen Hines | 210 | G | LSU | |||
| 7 | Andrew Stueber | 245 | OL | Michigan |
- New England Patriots (2024–present)
Executive vice president of player personnel
2-37 WR Ja’Lynn Polk (Washington)
3-68 OT Caedan Wallace (Penn State)
4-103 G Layden Robinson (Texas A&M)
4-110 WR Javon Baker (UCF)
6-180 CB Marcellas Dial (South Carolina)
6-193 QB Joe Milton III (Tennessee)
7-231 TE Jaheim Bell (Florida State)
As a positive for him..... he got a solid 3rd for Judon who has looked thoroughly washed for ATL.
Makes you wonder whether Judon knew he was washed going into the season, which is why he agitated for a payday.
Time for the obligatory reminder that NFL careers often end quickly and frequently without warning. Judon at 32 is the same age that Adalius Thomas and Rosevelt Colvin fell off their respective cliffs. Also the same age as Richard Seymour's last productive season. Jamie Collins was basically a reserve at 32 and washed at 33. Hightower was retired at 32.
Not handing out a big contract to Judon was a fabulous move by Wolf.
Wonder how many if any offers were out there, remember Judon was injured, not sure he was going to pass a physical and can't imagine anyone makes the trade without one, so not a great guy to trade during the draft.
I was responding to this claim " Not handing out a big contract to Judon was a fabulous move by Wolf. " There was absolutely 0 chance Judon was ever getting another contract with this team, hence why i said i will give him credit for getting a 3rd back, but seriously a fabulous move by Wolf??? I mean we are just grasping at straws now to try and give any kind of credit to him it seems.
I will say, plenty of teams would have brought Judon back as a "veteran leader" and "Well he's our best pass-rusher" and "have plenty of cap, we can frontload it and trade him next year" happens all the time in this league.
I still think Wolf is getting too much blame for the BB years. It was known BB went against the scouts many years and included Wolf.
You can’t say his draft sucks this year this early. Plenty of players take time to develop and can look terrible in the first year or two
You can’t say his draft sucks this year this early. Plenty of players take time to develop and can look terrible in the first year or two
I’m perfectly fine blaming Wolf for this year alone. Did he improve a single position group from last year aside from QB?
I give him credit for drafting Maye. Other than that… yuck.
Rebuilding involves building. Damned if I can figure out what exactly we’re building everywhere but QB.
TE is definitely better, Hooper is better than Gesicki and a better fit with Henry. But yeah, it's early days but unless the rookie WRs pick it up they are not much better than last year. Of course QB is by far the most important thing to get improved first so if you're going to get a major upgrade anywhere that's where you want it. Gibson is probably better than Zeke too I guess.
Gesicki and Pharoah Brown to Hooper and Bell seems like a marginal upgrade. Elliot to Gibson and Ryland to Slye were upgrades.
Trent Brown to Okorafor/etc was obviously a downgrade even with Brown’s unreliability. Mills/Phillips to Hawkins is probably a push. Mack Wilson to injured Takitaki is a downgrade
Lawrence Guy was washed up but Watts didn’t work out as a replacement. Moving Judon and replacing him with (I guess?) Ximines might have been ok.
Other than QB it’s really hard to find places where he’s rebuilt anything or even laid plans to do so. Hooper, even if an upgrade, is old and declining. Gibson is unlikely to be part of the medium term future. Slye is a journeyman and not someone I’d count on too far into the future.
The draft class looks shaky to be kind other than Maye. Wolf has a lot to prove next spring. His first off-season seems like almost a total failure other than the big prize which will buy him some time.
I get that this season has given little for fans to be optimistic about beyond Maye but there is still over 50% of games to play. As we all know, the NFL is a tough place to learn on the job but occasionally some actually progress. Maybe we call his first off-season a "failure in waiting" to satisfy those who have seen enough know. But it can't really be a total failure with more ball to play.
Well sure, but that so many of the rookies aren’t getting any burn despite the miserable roster isn’t exactly promising. Maybe Tyquan Thornton busts out next year too.
Do drafts typically look much better over time? A year ago, folks were raving about Jack and Marcus Jones, IIRC
Do drafts typically look much better over time? A year ago, folks were raving about Jack and Marcus Jones, IIRC
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I mean... their 1st and 2nd round picks are playing their 3rd and 4th were playing until they got hurt. Their 6th and 7th round picks are playing STs. Only the 3rd string QB and one 4th rounder haven't played. That's more than most draft classes at this point.
Edit- so in week 7... Maye, and Robinson started, Polk was the 3rd WR by snaps, Dial and Bell both played STs. Baker was sick (but was supposed to play if he hadn't been) and Wallace was on IR. So only Milton wasn't playing by coach decision.
It was a fabulous move. There was pressure - by Judon's agent, by Judon, by the mediots, to extend Judon. Some GM's absolutely would have extended him. Fuck, Atlanta just gave up a 3rd for him. Hell, BB traded a 3rd and a 4th for a totally washed Derrick Burgess.
Now, Wolf is going to be assessed on a lot more than this just one trade. His first draft doesn't look good after the 1st round (although it's still early). The roster is not in good shape. Even bad GMs make good moves from time to time. Just don't think it hurts anything to acknowledge the good moves when they happen. I realize that people are just fucking weird about that sometimes.
I really encourage everyone to look at Keion White’s performance 7 games into last year. This is a guy who everyone points to as a draft win for the late BB era, and you’d view him like Wolf’s 2024 draft if you used the same cutoff point. Let these guys fail a little bit so they can learn to adjust to the league.
Yep, Rhamondre had 48 rushing yards through week 7 as a rookie, healthy scratch in 4 of 7, Uche did basically nothing as a rookie, Jennings had serious snaps in only 2 of his first 7. Thinking of some other slow starters... Trent McDuffie played 32 snaps across his first 7 weeks, Christian Watson had 57 yards after week 7, Nico Collins had 111 yards and was a healthy scratch multiple games it appears... some guys start slow
It is known based on leaks from Wolf it seems.
Polk seems no different than WR's drafted under BB, which makes you start to question the reports.
Polk can actually get open which is a skill that the likes of Thornton, Harry, Bethel Johnson, and Chad Jackson completely lacked.
Unfortunately, YDNRC. One year ago:
- Jack Jones was in the midst of a serious regression and repeated benchings, playing in only 4 games for the Pats before getting waived. He had a good 2nd half with the Raiders.
- Marcus Jones had torn his labrum and was out for the season.
These guys had good 2022 seasons, but both were no-shows for 2023 for different reasons.
This is all quite fair. I would just note that we should also look at rookie production, or lack there of, in context of who else is on the roster.
Stevenson was behind Damien Harris who had 3 100+ yard games by week 7. There was no reason to rush him into meaningful playing time. Uche had Winovich in front of him as a pass rusher.
Broadly speaking there was still enough starting talent on the roster in 2020-21 so that many draftees didn't need to jump in right away.
I'm not sure that's the case now. Seems like there are opportunities all over the field for most rookies to get meaningful snaps.
Obviously, I'm not expecting injured guys to contribute. And I agree that it's ludicrous to declare a draft bad after 7 games. My issue with Wolf is predominantly about his FA signings anyway.
Maye has started the last two games, with the delay in starting really a coaching decision not a player performance issue.
Polk leads the team in WR snap count.
Wallace played 18 and 11 snaps the first two weeks as a heavy TE to get his feet wet, then started at LT and got injured.
Robinson has started every game (maybe bar one) when healthy.
Baker hasn't played and that's disappointing.
Dial made the roster and has been a core special teamer
Milton made the roster as the third string QB.
Bell made the roster and has been an occasional special teamer.
Other than Baker I really don't see any of these guys failing to take their opportunities to get on the field and contribute as rookies. What they've done on the field is another matter but, again, impossible to really judge performance after seven games.
I'm not disagreeing. Like I said, the roster is bad so there's very few blockers for rookies to get time. I think that's a lot different than a guy like Stevenson who had a very good Damien Harris in front of him his rookie year.
But if you're going to give Stevenson the Harris context, doesn't it make sense to give Polk the context that he was playing with a QB who didn't throw to any wide receivers, let alone him? And he was, we're now discovering, clearly playing concussed last game?
We have a sample size of seven games in total, and two games with a quarterback who's not playing scared, and zero games with a reasonably healthy OL. I'm not pointing that at you because you admit as much, it just seems incredibly premature to think we have a good sense of who these guys will be as pros this far into the season. After 17 games, I'll probably feel different, but with preseason the way it is constructed now, we're barely into the regular season.
Yes, we need to at least get through this season before we can begin to make any semblance of a judgement on Wolf's first draft. Maybe some of these guys get healthy and light it up. Stranger things have happened.
I think the success of this draft hinges on NE getting something out of Polk or Baker. While McConkey isn't lighting the world on fire he has been a lot more productive than Polk and Baker who were selected with the picks LAC gave up to get Ladd. NE also gave up a later pick but it was after the consensus WRs had been selected so not directly comparing it.
I was not a fan of the trade at the time and nothing thus far has convinced me otherwise.
I was not a fan of the trade at the time and nothing thus far has convinced me otherwise.
I guess the thought was that McConkey is likely to need a lot more slot time, and the Pats already have Pop and Bourne preferring that position. However, in college, he lined up outside 3x as often as he did the slot, so this would be a silly reason to not draft him. I think Wolf outsmarted himself here, taking two bites at the apple rather than take the solid guy who'd dropped to them.
Ladd McConkey also has Justin Herbert throwing to him, though. Up until last week, Polk and Baker have been playing with a QB who would not throw to his wide receivers. Maybe McConkey will be much better than them, who knows, but it's not an apples to apples comparison at the moment.
Edit: If McConkey were on the Pats, I guarantee we'd have a thread talking about how much of a wasted pick he is. It just hasn't been a system conducive to wide receiver production for a majority of the year.
So it depends exactly where you look, but one site I use (it's fantasy based) has McConkey with double the catchable targets of Polk, and only 1 less drop. I don't have access to PFF targets (I'm cheap) but I know through week 4 they had him with only 4 catchable targets (he caught all 4) and 14 uncatchable.
Now the last 3 weeks he's struggled with catching the catchable ones, 3 drops in the last 2 games, and some other catchable targets that went incomplete, but the overall catch rate is highly skewed by all those OOB and dirted throws he was in the vicinity of weeks 1-4.
Now the last 3 weeks he's struggled with catching the catchable ones, 3 drops in the last 2 games, and some other catchable targets that went incomplete, but the overall catch rate is highly skewed by all those OOB and dirted throws he was in the vicinity of weeks 1-4.
I have McConkey on one of my fantasy teams and lets get it straight right off the bat, you can take any week for him so far this year and every week he has out produced stone hands Polk, and Baker who has yet to even play. That's of course not saying much but he has actually performed so far, unlike our new WR's..
I think you get zero pushback about what Pats rookie WRs are doing - nobody here seems to argue that they are producing. Instead its that some of the data suggests that they aren't complete zeros - but this analysis keeps ignoring the most important thing - who is throwing (or holding on too long to) the football.
Are we really prepared to judge players a bust not only seven games into their rookie season but also with subpar QB play for a vast majority of their snaps?
Also for a year that was supposed to be legendary for WRs id say outside of Nabers and Thomas most are disappointing right now. Like what WR looks better than Polk right now... not saying hes up there with MHJ or Oduneze but i fail to really see any other rookie doing that well either short of the 2 from LSU.
Polk is 17th on the list. 12 of these guys are better than 1.5 Yards per Route Run (Y/RR). Disappointing is a little harsh. It’s 7 games in.
Polk is 24th or 25th out of 27 for Y/RR. That’s rough. 0.44. TT territory. For reference Boutte is 1.24.
Every WR looks better than Polk.
https://espnanalytics.com/receivers
According to ESPN Analytics, Polk has been the worst pass catcher in the NFL. And not by a small margin either. Odunze, Legette, Coleman, McConkey, Mitchell have all shown significant flashes that Polk has not. None of them have necessarily lit the world on fire yet, but it's early and they're on track for solid rookie years. Polk, on the other hand, looks like the worst WR in the league
Polk has 7 receptions and 78 yards. Hes on pace to put up numbers a bit worse than Tyquan Thornton’s rookie season.
and im also including the fact that Brissett barely used WRs in my eval fyi Boutte didn't do anything at all until Maye, so technically you are judging him on 2 games.
Again nobody here seems to be trying to sell the forum on Polk or any rookies beyond Maye having an impact. And if current trends continue this draft will be bust material for people who like to focus on that. But using the YTD numbers to say "its already written" with 10 games remaining feels a bit premature.
Even if you reserve judgement, you can always pile on later. We do that all the time here.
Even if you reserve judgement, you can always pile on later. We do that all the time here.
I think that the people who were shaking their heads at the Polk pick and his drafting maybe one guy who might be a tackle in the last draft have every right to pigpile on Wolf's approach to the draft. Not that it's productive, but it's not the same thing as revising history.
Reiss on trade deadline philosophy
Cap space: $38.6 million
As the early-season trade of outside linebacker Matthew Judon to the Falcons for a 2025 third-round pick reflected, there is motivation to acquire significant draft capital as part of what the team's front office views as a multiyear rebuild. Given the Patriots' 1-6 record, it would be a long shot to see them give up a high pick for a player, unless it was a situation similar to the Bears' acquiring pass rusher Montez Sweat for a second-round pick last season. (Chicago signed Sweat to a long-term deal.)
The Pats also could consider acquiring a player with a less-than-desirable contract if it meant they'd also receive an early-round pick. The Browns did that in 2017 by picking up quarterback Brock Osweiler, taking on his contract and receiving a second-round pick from the Texans in the swap. -- Mike Reiss
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/41833895/nfl-2024-cap-space-draft-picks-trade-deadline-moves
49ers and Lions among the five teams with the most cap space is intriguing
Cap space: $38.6 million
As the early-season trade of outside linebacker Matthew Judon to the Falcons for a 2025 third-round pick reflected, there is motivation to acquire significant draft capital as part of what the team's front office views as a multiyear rebuild. Given the Patriots' 1-6 record, it would be a long shot to see them give up a high pick for a player, unless it was a situation similar to the Bears' acquiring pass rusher Montez Sweat for a second-round pick last season. (Chicago signed Sweat to a long-term deal.)
The Pats also could consider acquiring a player with a less-than-desirable contract if it meant they'd also receive an early-round pick. The Browns did that in 2017 by picking up quarterback Brock Osweiler, taking on his contract and receiving a second-round pick from the Texans in the swap. -- Mike Reiss
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/41833895/nfl-2024-cap-space-draft-picks-trade-deadline-moves
49ers and Lions among the five teams with the most cap space is intriguing
Once again the point is that we've only seen seven games out of 17 total. ~58% of the teams potential snaps are yet to come. That's a lot of ball still left to be played.
I am guessing the "total failure" crowd is spending their time elsewhere and not on the Pats anymore this year.
You're absolutely right. 7 games doesn't tell the whole story. Year 1 doesn't even tell the story. I'm just not begrudging people their ennui. Only concrete reason to hope right now is the #3 pick, which appears to have been the right guy.
We're in the Wolf thread. They had mad cap space and high picks in every round (at least almost every round). But the team is worse. Folks are a little nervous about the braintrust, and that's understandble imo.
So they weren't talking about the Patriots, but I think it applies....
Robert Mayes and Derrik Klassen were talking about the Giants/Cardinals/Lions and how they are a great example of... "you need to know where you are and be realistic about it".
The Giants tricked themselves and made a bunch of short term moves chasing a playoff spot that locked up their cap space. The Cardinals and Lions re-set hard and did it in slow and steady. They didn't sign short term upgrades to multiple year deals, instead seeing what the young guys they already had, or just drafted had. They picked up a bunch of cheapish guys in FA on short deals to see if anyone popped in their system.
Now... so far the Patriots are following that model, which is good.... what is somewhat concerning is they haven't hit much so far (outside of course the most important spot, QB). No guarantee it works out, but the process shows an understanding of what the team is and where they are in the process, and that's encouraging.
Robert Mayes and Derrik Klassen were talking about the Giants/Cardinals/Lions and how they are a great example of... "you need to know where you are and be realistic about it".
The Giants tricked themselves and made a bunch of short term moves chasing a playoff spot that locked up their cap space. The Cardinals and Lions re-set hard and did it in slow and steady. They didn't sign short term upgrades to multiple year deals, instead seeing what the young guys they already had, or just drafted had. They picked up a bunch of cheapish guys in FA on short deals to see if anyone popped in their system.
Now... so far the Patriots are following that model, which is good.... what is somewhat concerning is they haven't hit much so far (outside of course the most important spot, QB). No guarantee it works out, but the process shows an understanding of what the team is and where they are in the process, and that's encouraging.
I agree with most of this. The one caveat I’d add is that we probably will need most if not all of the season to get a proper read on the non-Maye picks. Between the new coaching staff, plague of injuries, horrible OL problems, and generally middling roster, you’ve had a lot of guys—including guys from Belichick’s last few drafts—looking out of sorts, pressing to the point of flailing and certainly not benefitting from playing alongside veteran stalwarts.