Patriots Beginning Search Process For Lead Front Office Executive

According to Jonathan Jones, the Patriots are opening a search for a potentially new lead football operations executive. 

For most teams, this is the general manager. But Patriots owner Robert Kraft has not named a GM for decades at this point and it’s not clear if that will change. 

Patriots director of scouting Eliot Wolf has been serving as the de facto GM this offseason and heading up the team’s front office. Jones says he is a strong candidate for the role. 

However, the Patriots must conduct a full search to satisfy the Rooney Rule and interview two outside minority candidates. 

There’s currently a vacancy here because former Patriots HC Bill Belichick held this role. The team had a provision that allowed them to promote HC Jerod Mayo to replace Belichick as coach without conducting a full search but did not have that for Wolf. 

Wolf, 39, is the son of former Packers GM Ron Wolf. He started off as a pro personnel assistant for the Packers in 2004 and worked his way up to director of football operations in 2016.

After the Packers hired Brian Gutekunst as their GM, Wolf departed for the assistant GM job under John Dorsey in Cleveland. He then worked for the Seahawks before joining the Patriots as a consultant.

New England promoted him to director of scouting in 2022. 

We’ll have more on the Patriots front office as the news is available.