Alpha Wolf: Eliot Wolf named de facto GM

Jimbodandy

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Clearly we need to see if Baker and Polk can contribute next season, so they should get all the snaps at WR next week. I’d like to see Wallace start, as well, to see if he can contribute to the OL next year.
Narrator: they can't.

Everything after Maye was junk. Good on Wolf for getting the most important piece right, and fine, the guys in the 6th and 7th generally do nothing. But pooching rounds 2, 3, and both 4s with picks at the top of each round took motherfucking effort. Darts would have been more effective. Pretty much everyone person in this forum would have done better.
 

sezwho

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Every team has a Gibson and Hooper. The Pats just happen to feature theirs because of their talent deficiency. Pass catching RBs that you can't really trust in pass pro and move TEs that can't block are about the most fungible assets in the NFL.
Yeah, I’m not saying Gibson is headed for Canton (or Hooper) but the Pats haven’t had a good pass catching back or useful second TE for a long time. Not sure fungible is the right word.

Edit - it’s possible that TEs like Jonnu were good but scheme and coaching so terrible he was useless.

My point was more that Hightower had a reputation for identifying RBs and seems to have done a creditable job.
 
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Smiling Joe Hesketh

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I would give up meat and seafood for a whole year if this would happen. Maybe 2.

If they went off the consensus board they would be better than vs me. If I were in charge I would defer to the consensus board vs my own. I would just make sure that we adjusted for scheme fits and eliminate guys who weren't. I might use my board and my preferences for a tie-breaker. That was a fun day-dream.

As for this year...

If you start over it makes it harder to do the draft well. You are likely not going to clean house until after the draft on the scouting side at the very least. You would have a limited ability to convert what they were looking at to your new system. I still want them to clean house at the top but it comes with some tradeoffs (again that I would gladly take). I would trade down this year if I were Wolf or the new GM. If you can get anything close to fair value pull the trigger. Try to get a 1 next year. This is the last super-duper senior COVID-impacted college draft. You are going to start to see more years with normal levels of blue chippers at the top vs 7 year starters taking up their snaps and preventing them from developing. After that you just have to make sure you know where the tier drops are, your horizontal board and the consensus horizontal board, and other teams info if you can get it (Bill certainly did!). We have so many needs... we need the ammo.

All of that fun and draft strategy aside if Wolf stays I hope his year 2 is a lot more lucky and they stick closer to consensus.
Does what WAS has done this year move the needle for you? 4-13 last year, they cleaned house top to bottom, drafted and signed well, brought in new management and now they are 11-5 and in the playoffs.

Why does this have to be a multi-year rebuild? Why should it be? Why are Wolf and Mayo allowed to punt a rebuilding year because they had a terrible draft and a terrible coaching acumen?

How could this year's draft be worse than last year's? Clear them out, bring in better people, and cook. I see zero reason to give Wolf another shot at screwing up the draft. Once was enough.
 

Super Nomario

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Clearly we need to see if Baker and Polk can contribute next season, so they should get all the snaps at WR next week. I’d like to see Wallace start, as well, to see if he can contribute to the OL next year.
I would hate to let anything that happens in Week 17 impact offseason decision-making.
 

jcd0805

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Does what WAS has done this year move the needle for you? 4-13 last year, they cleaned house top to bottom, drafted and signed well, brought in new management and now they are 11-5 and in the playoffs.

Why does this have to be a multi-year rebuild? Why should it be? Why are Wolf and Mayo allowed to punt a rebuilding year because they had a terrible draft and a terrible coaching acumen?

How could this year's draft be worse than last year's? Clear them out, bring in better people, and cook. I see zero reason to give Wolf another shot at screwing up the draft. Once was enough.
Agree with all of this a million percent. Look how quickly Harbaugh changed everything for the Chargers-this does not have to be a year by painful year rebuild.
 

Garshaparra

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Agree with all of this a million percent. Look how quickly Harbaugh changed everything for the Chargers-this does not have to be a year by painful year rebuild.
The Commanders was a year-by-painful-year rebuild. They haven't been legitimately good since 2012. They made the playoffs in 2015 and 2019 with 9-7 and 7-9 records respectively thanks to terrible division play. They have been mediocre-to-bad forever. You have to go back to the 90s to find two consecutive winning seasons from the franchise.

That said, I agree with SJH that Wolf's 2023 draft was bad, and his FAs and re-signings were almost suspiciously bad. Having Duggar, Onwenu and Peppers all regress after signing big deals to stay, not to mention Barmore's illness injury, it's staggering.
 

jsinger121

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The Commanders was a year-by-painful-year rebuild. They haven't been legitimately good since 2012. They made the playoffs in 2015 and 2019 with 9-7 and 7-9 records respectively thanks to terrible division play. They have been mediocre-to-bad forever. You have to go back to the 90s to find two consecutive winning seasons from the franchise.

That said, I agree with SJH that Wolf's 2023 draft was bad, and his FAs and re-signings were almost suspiciously bad. Having Duggar, Onwenu and Peppers all regress after signing big deals to stay, not to mention Barmore's illness injury, it's staggering.
The player regression can be tied right back to Jerod Mayo in my opinion. Frankly what the hell does he even do during the week?
 

Cellar-Door

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Agree with all of this a million percent. Look how quickly Harbaugh changed everything for the Chargers-this does not have to be a year by painful year rebuild.
The Chargers are 10-6, while yes they were 5-12 last year they were 10-7 the year before and 9-8 the year before that... The reason everyone thought that was by far the best coach opening is it was a ready-made playoff roster coming off a year from hell
 

leetinsley38

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The player regression can be tied right back to Jerod Mayo in my opinion. Frankly what the hell does he even do during the week?
The funny thing is that both Wolf and Mayo’s best and only defense for keeping their job is the incompetence of the other.

Wolf: How can you fairly evaluate me, the other guy is historically bad at developing and coaching players.
Mayo: What do you expect, the other guy gave me the worst roster in the league.

Flush them all down the toilet and start over.
 

Eddie Jurak

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Does what WAS has done this year move the needle for you? 4-13 last year, they cleaned house top to bottom, drafted and signed well, brought in new management and now they are 11-5 and in the playoffs.

Why does this have to be a multi-year rebuild? Why should it be? Why are Wolf and Mayo allowed to punt a rebuilding year because they had a terrible draft and a terrible coaching acumen?

How could this year's draft be worse than last year's? Clear them out, bring in better people, and cook. I see zero reason to give Wolf another shot at screwing up the draft. Once was enough.
Washington's last playoff win was in 2005.
 

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Coming back here after being off line much of the last couple of weeks b/c holidays, family etc.

The last two weeks have moved me pretty clearly into the "time to clean house" camp. Excessively long post on why follows...

For most of the last several months I've been trying to give the powers that be the benefit of the doubt, for a few reasons:
  1. First, I was impressively wrong about Joe Mazzulla after his first season coaching the Celtics. I was banging the "He's got to go" drum pretty hard after Boston lost the 2023 ECF to Miami. And ho boy did he prove me wrong in the following twelve months.
  2. Second, it was hard from the outside to know what to make of what was happening inside the black box that was the Belichick-run Patriots. What was causing the consistently bad drafting, the head-scratching personnel decisions, the erratic offensive coaching, etc. etc.? It was hard to know what was going wrong and so what interventions would fix this issues. The Krafts' had a lot more visibility that I did into what had been going on, and so it seemed reasonable to let their plan play out and see if they weren't on to something.
Having gone back and reread a bunch of what I posted before and at the start of the season, there were a few things I clearly wanted see over the 2023 campaign, as evidence that the ship had been righted and turned in a better direction:
  • I wanted to see Polk, Caedan Wallace, Layden Robinson, and perhaps a late-round pick exceed expectations and show that the college scouting team/process was on to something good with those picks
  • I wanted some combination of moves provide evidence that Wolf/et al were the kind of savvy managers of talent/cap that could build a strong playoff team
  • I wanted Mayo/et al to have the team playing fundamentally sound ball, with impressive schemes well-executed, and generally looking like they were well-prepared each week. Ideally, I wanted the team to be trending upward over the second-half of the season, and putting in multiple efforts where they appeared to punch over their weight class
Obviously, none of those things have happened

So, in retrospect, the story that best fits the facts-in-evidence points to a franchise that has been poorly run for the last several years. The challenges this created were somewhat offset, for a while, with the lingering benefits of having a GOAT defensive coach, albeit one who was losing his edge over the rest of the league as younger imitators copied and built on his accomplishments. Compounding our problems the GOAT defensive coach insisted on also playing the role of bad GM. And in the end the benefits of the first couldn't overcome the recurring flaws of the second.

In the last twelve months we removed the GOAT defensive coach/bad GM combo, and now appear to be left with just the poorly-run franchise. What to do?

I'm staying out of the Strum und Drang in the other thread, but generally side with the folks who see the Pats as an attractive opportunity for the right ambitious and talented GM/HC candidate. Why? I see two main reasons
  • For ambitious people who want to prove their worth the Pats currently being a dumpster fire will be a feature, not a bug. They turn this franchise around and they get to bask in the glory of being the savior. If instead they go take over (say) a 12--win team and then win 11 games and everyone's will be a critic.
  • The huge amount of salary cap flexibility makes this team a blank canvas, on which you can build more-or-less anything. There are no long-term contracts you need to build around. No scheme you need to be loyal to. You can implement your most glorious vision without impediment.
The Pats are a turn-around. So, we need someone excited to take on a turn-around, and build something from scratch. Those people would rather have a blank canvas and flexibility than a bunch of commitments they gotta accommodate.

If [Wolf + Highsmith] were assets that made the HC job more attractive, I'd consider keeping them. If [Mayo et al.] were assets that made the GM job more attractive, I'd consider keeping him. From the cheap seats I'm not sure either has shown enough to tie the hands of the people you're bringing in.

I'd go the Washington route that others have brought up:
  1. Announce you're launching a search or new football leadership, that will have complete authority over the front office, coaching, and player personnel
  2. Hire a group of external people to run the search, empower them to find the best talent + fit they can, as well as to assess the degree to which Wolf, Highsmith, Mayo, etc. were assets of any value to candidates
  3. Hire someone to this position of ultimate football leadership
  4. Let them fill out the rest of the front office and coaching staff as they see fit
I'm guessing that whoever you hire is going to want a long-term contract worth real money, as insurance against the Krafts' getting buyer's remorse. You pay it, because it's a reasonable thing for them to ask for. And you're not going to hire top talent by insisting they accept an unreasonable offer.

Hopefully, step #2, above, is already in process if not yet publicly announced. There's a lot you can do during the NFL playoffs, but it's always better to get as early a jump start as possible.
 

joe dokes

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Does what WAS has done this year move the needle for you? 4-13 last year, they cleaned house top to bottom, drafted and signed well, brought in new management and now they are 11-5 and in the playoffs.
The caveat about "The Washington Approach" is that it included sacking the owner who, IMO, was a permanent obstacle to success, much as Jerry is in Dallas. Is it time for him to go, too?
 

NomarsFool

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I would hate to let anything that happens in Week 17 impact offseason decision-making.
Agreed. I guess saying “all the snaps” didn’t make my sarcasm clear enough. I want them to play so that the Pats don’t win. Realistically, though, Polk will be here next season. There is basically zero chance he is cut. Giving him a chance to catch the ball against the Bills’ special teams guys playing CB might give him some confidence and get him back on track to being a serviceable #2/#3 WR which NE could surely use.
 

Super Nomario

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Agreed. I guess saying “all the snaps” didn’t make my sarcasm clear enough. I want them to play so that the Pats don’t win. Realistically, though, Polk will be here next season. There is basically zero chance he is cut. Giving him a chance to catch the ball against the Bills’ special teams guys playing CB might give him some confidence and get him back on track to being a serviceable #2/#3 WR which NE could surely use.
He's probably on the team but he should be buried on the depth chart. Make him crawl his way out. He's been incredibly bad, worse than any of Belichick's WR picks.
 
Oct 12, 2023
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The caveat about "The Washington Approach" is that it included sacking the owner who, IMO, was a permanent obstacle to success, much as Jerry is in Dallas. Is it time for him to go, too?
I’m not going to defend Jerry Jones too strongly but the Cowboys just had 3 straight 12-5 seasons and likely would have had double digit wins this year had Prescott stayed healthy. Will
McClay is very good at his job and while Jones is an obstacle, I don’t know that he’s a “permanent obstacle to success”.

And for what it’s worth, at this point, I’d trust Jerry Jones over Kraft.
 
Oct 12, 2023
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Agreed. I guess saying “all the snaps” didn’t make my sarcasm clear enough. I want them to play so that the Pats don’t win. Realistically, though, Polk will be here next season. There is basically zero chance he is cut. Giving him a chance to catch the ball against the Bills’ special teams guys playing CB might give him some confidence and get him back on track to being a serviceable #2/#3 WR which NE could surely use.
There’s a world where Wolf and Mayo are both gone and Polk still sucks where he could be dumped in camp.

Assuming Kraft keeps the incompetent crew in charge, yeah, Polk is here wasting space again.
 

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The caveat about "The Washington Approach" is that it included sacking the owner who, IMO, was a permanent obstacle to success, much as Jerry is in Dallas. Is it time for him to go, too?
If I'm counting right, Dan Snyder's team had only five seasons above .500 in the +20 years that he owned the team, and only one playoff win

The Patriots record since the Krafts bought the team is... better than that

If someone wants to suggest that the Krafts are a "permanent obstacle to success" they'd have to submit a whole bunch of facts not yet in evidence
 

twibnotes

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If I'm counting right, Dan Snyder's team had only five seasons above .500 in the +20 years that he owned the team, and only one playoff win

The Patriots record since the Krafts bought the team is... better than that

If someone wants to suggest that the Krafts are a "permanent obstacle to success" they'd have to submit a whole bunch of facts not yet in evidence
Sure, we need more evidence to compare Kraft to Snyder, but by the time that evidence exists, we will have endured multiple more years of ineptitude.

I don’t know if Kraft is Snyder now, but I do know he’s materially less effective than he used to be. There is no way to defend the moves he made last offseason. It was an egregiously bad process…actually not even bc there was no process.

Then, to add a cherry to the shit sundae, he backed a documentary that managed to explain a 20 year dynasty without giving credit to its primary architect, Bill Belichick.

I used to wish Kraft owned all the Boston teams. Now I wish he owned none of them.
 
Oct 12, 2023
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If I'm counting right, Dan Snyder's team had only five seasons above .500 in the +20 years that he owned the team, and only one playoff win

The Patriots record since the Krafts bought the team is... better than that

If someone wants to suggest that the Krafts are a "permanent obstacle to success" they'd have to submit a whole bunch of facts not yet in evidence
I don’t think the Krafts have to be on par with Snyder to be considered a big problem moving forward.

Firing Belichick and anointing wildly incompetent and unqualified Mayo (and undeserving Wolf) shows the same type of terrible judgment we saw from Kraft when he pushed Parcells out in favor of Grier and Carroll.

I think there’s an argument to be made that BB’s early success bought Bill the ability to push Kraft aside (or Kraft was able to control himself because of the insane run of success). Kraft kept his meddlesome impulses in control because he loved the fame and fortune BB’s success brought him (which he has conveniently rewritten to be entirely himself and Brady, BB is just an unpleasant afterthought in the story of the dynasty era apparently)

The post dynasty Kraft and pre-BB Kraft look eerily similar. He’s probably too old to get down on the sideline with his stopwatch and give scouting recommendations like he used to but he had a reputation for being an ego maniacal meddlesome owner on par with Jones. I think a lot of Pats fans forget the late 90’s Kraft.

Making Mayo coach because of the look on his face while he was standing in a river in Israel on a field trip of sorts is the exact thing we would mock any other owner for.

Is he Dan Snyder? No. Is there any good reason to think he can get the franchise back on track without a lot of luck? Also no.
 

SMU_Sox

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I agree that the Kraft family have not handled the post BB era well. Dan Snyder was a piece of shit and did so much to create a toxic workplace that comparing the Kraft ownership team to him is, to me anyway, crossing a line. It's been a year - maybe wait 1-2 more before going there?
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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I’m more a TB guy than BB too, but the documentary didn’t ignore Brady the way it did BB. It was pathetic
Will take your word for it, never felt the desire to watch it. Does seem like the entire organization needs to move towards the future, and give up a bit on the past. Not sure RKK, the last man standing, can do that.
 

Bongorific

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The Commanders was a year-by-painful-year rebuild. They haven't been legitimately good since 2012. They made the playoffs in 2015 and 2019 with 9-7 and 7-9 records respectively thanks to terrible division play. They have been mediocre-to-bad forever. You have to go back to the 90s to find two consecutive winning seasons from the franchise.

That said, I agree with SJH that Wolf's 2023 draft was bad, and his FAs and re-signings were almost suspiciously bad. Having Duggar, Onwenu and Peppers all regress after signing big deals to stay, not to mention Barmore's illness injury, it's staggering.
Painful year-by-year, yes. Rebuild, no. How many players from the 2015 team are on this year’s roster?
The Chargers are 10-6, while yes they were 5-12 last year they were 10-7 the year before and 9-8 the year before that... The reason everyone thought that was by far the best coach opening is it was a ready-made playoff roster coming off a year from hell
They were 5-8 with Herbert despite him being banged up and having terrible coaching. A lot of that ready made playoff roster is Hebert. Allen, Williams, Ekeler are all gone. They still had more talent returning than the Patriots will. But the lesson of Washington, Houston, LAC is if you have QB figured out, it’s possible to turn around an NFL team fairly quickly.
 

Cellar-Door

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Painful year-by-year, yes. Rebuild, no. How many players from the 2015 team are on this year’s roster?

They were 5-8 with Herbert despite him being banged up and having terrible coaching. A lot of that ready made playoff roster is Hebert. Allen, Williams, Ekeler are all gone. They still had more talent returning than the Patriots will. But the lesson of Washington, Houston, LAC is if you have QB figured out, it’s possible to turn around an NFL team fairly quickly.
These 3 guys were somewhere on the mostly washed to completely washed continuum.

The core of the team was and still is...
Herbert, Rashawn Slater (stud 1st round LT), which are the key pieces of a mediocre offense (two other 1st round OL help too), and one of the best defenses in the league loaded with studs... Mack, Bosa, James, Murray, Fulton, Maye, etc. Added Ford this yeah who has been great, but yeah that was a really good defensive roster with studs at by far the most important offensive positions (QB, LT).
 

Bongorific

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These 3 guys were somewhere on the mostly washed to completely washed continuum.

The core of the team was and still is...
Herbert, Rashawn Slater (stud 1st round LT), which are the key pieces of a mediocre offense (two other 1st round OL help too), and one of the best defenses in the league loaded with studs... Mack, Bosa, James, Murray, Fulton, Maye, etc. Added Ford this yeah who has been great, but yeah that was a really good defensive roster with studs at by far the most important offensive positions (QB, LT).
Agreed, my point was that they were featured in the offense in 2021 and 2022 when they had winning seasons but they weren’t going to get that production this year.
 

joe dokes

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I’m not going to defend Jerry Jones too strongly but the Cowboys just had 3 straight 12-5 seasons and likely would have had double digit wins this year had Prescott stayed healthy. Will
McClay is very good at his job and while Jones is an obstacle, I don’t know that he’s a “permanent obstacle to success”.

And for what it’s worth, at this point, I’d trust Jerry Jones over Kraft.
Its been 28 years since a SB appearance. Permanent enough for me.
 

joe dokes

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If I'm counting right, Dan Snyder's team had only five seasons above .500 in the +20 years that he owned the team, and only one playoff win

The Patriots record since the Krafts bought the team is... better than that

If someone wants to suggest that the Krafts are a "permanent obstacle to success" they'd have to submit a whole bunch of facts not yet in evidence
Im not suggesting that at all. Just wondering if those suggesting "washington approach" are.
 

Eric Fernsten's Disco Mustache

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Im not suggesting that at all. Just wondering if those suggesting "washington approach" are.
Ah, fair enough. Misunderstood your post.

FWIW, in answer to what you were actually asking: I'm not. Replacing the front office (and allowing them to hire/fire the Head Coach) is something that can be executed relatively quickly, and could lead to significant improvement in one off-season. It makes sense to try that and see how much better things get.




Is he Dan Snyder? No. Is there any good reason to think he can get the franchise back on track without a lot of luck? Also no... ...I don’t think the Krafts have to be on par with Snyder to be considered a big problem moving forward.
Fair enough

And to @joe dokes question... sentiment if obviously mixed



Sure, we need more evidence to compare Kraft to Snyder, but by the time that evidence exists, we will have endured multiple more years of ineptitude.... There is no way to defend the moves he made last offseason
FWIW, I'm not sure I've seen anyone on this Board defending what the Krafts did last offseason. But I'm able to keep up with well less than 100% of what goes on around here, so might easily have missed something

And at the same time, if the acceptable bar for an NFL owner is that they never have a really bad offseason I'm not sure if any of them pass the test.

To the bolded part, if we fired everyone who might hypothetically be inept years in the future nobody would ever have a job. I'm 100% comfortable with holding people accountable for past results-- which is why a bunch of us are calling for a new front office and coaching staff. Holding people accountable for mistakes they haven't made yet is an impressive new standard.
 

j44thor

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This article was mostly a good season long report on Maye's development but the part that sticks out the most to me is the general lack of accountability from Wolf.
This quote from Wolf both throwing the rookie WRs under the bus along with the coaching staff by bemoaning the lack of "internal development" this season is fireable IMO.

Rather than saying we though Polk was plug and play maybe it is worth suggesting they need to revisit their own internal scouting process that mis-identified both Polk and McConkey.

I don't see how Wolf can be brought back after taking basically zero responsibility for this season besides the blanket "not good enough crap".
I'd also love a follow up on why he was expecting internal development from one of the worst rosters in the NFL who hadn't meaningfully invested in the positions they were weakest at (WR/OL) in the draft for years. Was he expecting Tyquan Thornton to take a 3rd yr leap? Did he think Vederian Lowe was going to become an above average starter because vibes? I'm hoping Wolf is gone by this time tomorrow.

"We're 3-13, so not good enough. Let's start there. We had a lot of needs. I would say that I guess personally, what I was expecting maybe a little bit more internal development, which is a good lesson certainly heading into next year, and that you can't always rely on that," Wolf said. "The rookie receivers didn't have it really that much for us. And, you know, Polk was sort of in our estimation a plug-and-play. … Ultimately, to answer to your question, our record speaks for itself. We didn't do enough."

But there's hope for the 2025 Patriots in large part because of Maye. Wolf didn't hesitate when asked whether his QB will make life easier in free agency.

"Yeah, absolutely," he said. "Player X from another team is like, ‘Yeah, rookie quarterback, great. You know, we've all seen rookie quarterbacks come in and struggle, so that doesn't really mean a lot now.'

"Drake's actually playing well. It's on film for everyone to see."
https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/inside-drake-mayes-rookie-year-were-going-have-tom-brady-story-again
 

tims4wins

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This article was mostly a good season long report on Maye's development but the part that sticks out the most to me is the general lack of accountability from Wolf.
This quote from Wolf both throwing the rookie WRs under the bus along with the coaching staff by bemoaning the lack of "internal development" this season is fireable IMO.

Rather than saying we though Polk was plug and play maybe it is worth suggesting they need to revisit their own internal scouting process that mis-identified both Polk and McConkey.

I don't see how Wolf can be brought back after taking basically zero responsibility for this season besides the blanket "not good enough crap".
I'd also love a follow up on why he was expecting internal development from one of the worst rosters in the NFL who hadn't meaningfully invested in the positions they were weakest at (WR/OL) in the draft for years. Was he expecting Tyquan Thornton to take a 3rd yr leap? Did he think Vederian Lowe was going to become an above average starter because vibes? I'm hoping Wolf is gone by this time tomorrow.



https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/inside-drake-mayes-rookie-year-were-going-have-tom-brady-story-again
This was discussed at length yesterday in the Mayo thread. I 100% agree with you. But there are quite a few posters who thought it showed accountability on Wolf and that it was a “stretch” to say he threw the coaching staff and WRs under the bus. I don’t see how anyone can have that take. Go check out the thread.
 

Dogman

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The pronouns in that article mean something. We, our, and I all convey responsibility. You literally said Wolf took no responsibility which is factually incorrect. Those that are looking for any reasons to trash the guy are ignoring the meaning of those words for your own validation.
 

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I posted the article in the Mayo thread. I thought Wolf took accountability for assessing Polk as a plug and play, and that was his miss, and I thought the comment about the lack of internal development represented a criticism of the coaching staff. So... some accountability (albeit vague) in multiple directions, but it still reveals an organizational issue of finger pointing and excuse-making.
 

SMU_Sox

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This is an important lesson for drafting and developing. You can't always rely on it. Seems accountable to me here.
 

BigSoxFan

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I posted the article in the Mayo thread. I thought Wolf took accountability for assessing Polk as a plug and play, and that was his miss, and I thought the comment about the lack of internal development represented a criticism of the coaching staff. So... some accountability (albeit vague) in multiple directions, but it still reveals an organizational issue of finger pointing and excuse-making.
Yeah, this is SoSH so we’re all going to over analyze the shit out of a simple quote. I think the truth, as you say, was somewhere in the middle. I admit to interpreting the development quote as a veiled criticism of the coaching staff’s failure in that department - clearly others did as well. The plug and play comment about Polk could be reasonably interpreted as trying to take responsibility for the pick.

Ultimately, none of this matters. We’ll see what Kraft opts to do.
 

Cellar-Door

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So without getting into the "responsibility" issue......

I think that's a quote that shows at least a good understanding by Wolf of where the personnel side of things went wrong.

If we said what are the two biggest mistakes Wolf made in the offseason we'd probably say...
1. Had way too much faith in the existing players improving, and didn't bring in enough solid starter players (especially on O-line where they put way too much faith in Sow/Jordan/Rookies) but also places like DT, LB, etc.
2. Seemed to draft for need and look for guys they though could play right away over best talent.

Without parsing the language, I like that if Kraft brings him back, at least he can look at his previous year, identify the mistakes.... now he still needs to not make them again, and have better evals in the draft, BUT... one thing we discussed in the coaching threads as a concern was a lack of awareness or willingness to identify that mistakes were mistakes and correct them. GMs, the correction takes place on a longer timeline, but at least he seems to know where he screwed up.
 

j44thor

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View attachment 94255


This is an important lesson for drafting and developing. You can't always rely on it. Seems accountable to me here.
Sorry but we means collectively but ultimately Wolf was the defacto GM. You know who doesn't say we when it comes to accountability, Maye. He took the blame for throwing INTs that resulted in losses even though most of them weren't his fault. The only time Wolf says I is when he is deflecting blame, I expected more development which he is not responsible for.
Polk was a miss in "our" estimation but the internal development I was expecting more. This is blame deflecting 101.
 

j44thor

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The pronouns in that article mean something. We, our, and I all convey responsibility. You literally said Wolf took no responsibility which is factually incorrect. Those that are looking for any reasons to trash the guy are ignoring the meaning of those words for your own validation.
I and we do not mean the same thing, especially when coming from the head of operations.
 

Eddie Jurak

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This quote from Wolf both throwing the rookie WRs under the bus along with the coaching staff by bemoaning the lack of "internal development" this season is fireable IMO.

Rather than saying we though Polk was plug and play maybe it is worth suggesting they need to revisit their own internal scouting process that mis-identified both Polk and McConkey.
I think that is implicit in Wolf's quote. To me, "we thought Polk was plug and play," is much more of an indictment of Wolf and company than it is of Polk or the coaching staff. "Plug and play" means finished product. There's no shame for any NFL draftee after the top of the first round to not be plug and play. That Wolf thought this of Polk is a damning indictment of Wolf. Wolf saying it is Wolf tasking accountability.

I don't see how Wolf can be brought back after taking basically zero responsibility for this season besides the blanket "not good enough crap".
I think he went beyond that, admitting to 2 specific mistakes along with the blame that goes with 3-13.

I'd also love a follow up on why he was expecting internal development from one of the worst rosters in the NFL who hadn't meaningfully invested in the positions they were weakest at (WR/OL) in the draft for years. Was he expecting Tyquan Thornton to take a 3rd yr leap? Did he think Vederian Lowe was going to become an above average starter because vibes? I'm hoping Wolf is gone by this time tomorrow.
Part of the problem here, I think, is that this was a single quote from Wolf shoehorned into an article that was mostly about Maye's progress. Wolf's quote suggests lots of follow ups, such as those you mention here, but I don't think it is fair to hold it against Wolf that those follow ups were not asked, ansewered, and reported. I would like those answers, but no part of Wolf's quote could reasonably be read as "We did a real bang up job here in football ops but the coaching and players fucked us" which is how it seems to be being read as.

Lowe was something of a development success story this year. He came into camp wanting to be a swing tackle, was the third player to get snaps at LT, and wasn't good, exactly, but was better than a lot of the guys who played, and might actually be a decent swing tackle.

I don't think enough is said about how badly Onwenu shat the bet after signing his big contract.

[/QUOTE]
The pronouns in that article mean something. We, our, and I all convey responsibility. You literally said Wolf took no responsibility which is factually incorrect. Those that are looking for any reasons to trash the guy are ignoring the meaning of those words for your own validation.
Agreed. I don't know how good Wolf is at his job, how much of the responsibility for this year should go to coaching vs players vs front office, but that quote is an appropriate one for someone in his situation.
 

naclone

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"Im a dummy for expecting that other people would do their job" is the read Im getting here. Technically it is taking accountability. But.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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It is an article that features quotes and words put together by a third party (i.e. not the subject to be clear). And people are 100% sure the way it is written conveys reality - a reality they so badly want to believe in. I know its not possible in this case but things do occasionally get taken out of context and presentation matters.

Next caller...
 

j44thor

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I think what bothers me most, besides calling out the rookie WRs, is that Wolf uses I at all in the interview. If he just went with "we" the entire time it would have been fairly generic but once he says "I expected more internal development" I don't see how we can read that in any other manner than him assigning blame to the coaching staff.
 

Curt S Loew

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To say he is taking no accountability is just plain ridiculous. I don't know how you can read this statement any other way:

"Polk was sort of in our estimation a plug-and-play."

He's not talking about Polk's development. He's not talking about how he received poor coaching. He's saying he picked him because he thought he would come in and immediately produce. He was wrong. And he owned that.

There is certainly other blame shifting going on but he is clearly taking some accountability for the team's production this season.
 

Dogman

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I think what bothers me most, besides calling out the rookie WRs, is that Wolf uses I at all in the interview. If he just went with "we" the entire time it would have been fairly generic but once he says "I expected more internal development" I don't see how we can read that in any other manner than him assigning blame to the coaching staff.
Wolf is clearly saying he made mistakes, the coaching staff made mistakes, and the players made mistakes. Not one person denies that is a fair assessment of this season. But, denying the words used as anything other than Wolf taking part of the blame is ridiculous.
 

Cellar-Door

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"I was expecting more internal development" seems to be saying that HE overestimated the players.
I think in the context it's more... I made a strategic mistake based on a bad assumption about player development. And I think that's a thing that probably happens with new GMs, they look at what guys could be rather than are, and say "ok, these guys are young, they'll improve, why add a guy who is 10% better when these guys will make up some of that gap and maybe pass them" but of course, even with good coaching not everyone improves in a linear fashion.
I take that to be not about how guys not developing (not really his job) is the problem, but more that he made a bad assumption and is recognizing it.

As to the I versus we stuff.... I think that's just how the job works. HE made the strategic decision he is criticizing, WE as in the entire scouting apparatus made a mistake on Polk's readiness. I don't think he was making a Machiavellian pronoun choice there, I think it's just how he thinks of the two things. He is in the end the guy who makes strategy decisions, but when talking about evaluation of a particular player... that's a collective effort. These appear to have been off the cuff comments in response to a reporter question, not a prepared statement where every word is carefully checked before release.
 

SMU_Sox

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That's not the only reasonable way to read that quote.
It isn’t. You can infer things from it but that doesn’t make you right about the legitimacy of the inference. It reminds me though that the temperature on these issue are hot. They should be hot at this point in the year. Probably best to hear more from the guy… on his way out the door hopefully?