PATRIOTS EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF PLAYER PERSONNEL ELIOT WOLF

PRESS CONFERENCE
April 13, 2026

EW: Welcome to the pre-draft press conference. I just want to take a moment to thank our scouting staff and our coaching staff, everyone in the football operation, analytics, video, that pour in countless hours to help us get to the right decisions. There's a lot of work that goes into this, as you all know, but really starting once this draft ends, starting in May, our scouts kind of turn the page and move on to next year. So, that's kind of the process. We go to the NFS meetings in Florida. We do summer scouting. They go to training camps in August. They go to games. They go to practices. They're away from their families. As we get into this thing, cross-checks, All-Star games, December meetings, Combine, pro days, we're still turning over stones, finding players, re-evaluating and making sure that the guys have the things that we want. There's a lot of reason for optimism. I mean, first of all, we're here in this new building. It's really exciting. The reaction from some of the players that are on the team that have come through here, as well as some of the pre-draft visit players that have come through, it's been pretty cool. Guys from big programs like Georgia and Oregon that have outstanding facilities are commenting on the space that the Krafts designed and developed along with their group. It's been really cool. We have a brand-new draft room, which what does that mean? Everywhere, there are screens. We don't have the little magnets anymore, which a lot of people are very excited about, but from a technology standpoint, it's state-of-the-art. It's first-rate. It's made things a lot easier, and just give a shoutout to Mike Aronian, Keithen Shepard and Ryan Cowden, who have done quite a bit of work and will continue to do quite a bit of work formulating and making sure it's exactly user-friendly and what we need not only now, but also once the draft starts. Just also wanted to acknowledge a couple people here. I mentioned Ryan Cowden, but Alonzo Highsmith, Matt Groh, Richard Miller, Brian Smith, the entire college scouting department, and then Nancy Meier, obviously, has meant a lot to this organization, to a ton of people over the years. Fifty-one years as a Patriot. This will be her last draft; she's retiring, and the logistics and the background work that she does, we're just so thrilled to have gotten the opportunity to work with her. With that, I will open it up to any questions about the draft.

Q: Is the board finalized, or how close to finalized is it?

EW: It is not finalized. The college scouts are actually here now. We restarted this round of draft meetings over the weekend – not this past weekend, but two weekends ago. We're still tweaking. We're not through every position this round yet, but they're doing some breakout groups right now while I'm down here, working through clumps of players and just kind of making sure that we have those guys in the right order. So, I would say the hay is not quite in the barn yet.

Q: Do you feel like you have a chance to move up the board, and is this the type of draft where it would make sense to do so?

EW: We're open to anything. Whatever way we can possibly improve the team, we're open to. We have 11 picks. Most of those are kind of later in the draft, but we do have some flexibility with those 11 picks. I think it'll depend a little bit on how the board falls. If we view that there's a player that whether he's falling or there's somebody that we think we need to go get, we'll be open to those opportunities.

Q: It seemed like the last two years, you probably had a good idea of who you were taking with Drake [Maye] and Will [Campbell]. How different has this year been planning for the first round?

EW: Yeah, there are one or two more guys that are going to be off the board by the time we're picking at 31, unless we trade up into the top five, Karen [Guregian]. It's tougher to predict, but it's not different than – again, last year, we picked at the beginning of the second round. So, it's still the same process, and we're still evaluating all those players. In this round of meetings, we didn't look at [Fernando] Mendoza this time around, but we're evaluating everybody because you never know exactly what's going to happen.

Q: I've heard it said and read some things that this year's overall draft is not as talented as other drafts, but within this draft, are there any positions that you think there really is exceptional quality?

EW: I think every draft is different. I saw a pull quote that I actually said. I did say it, but there was a 'but' at the end of it. It was basically, 'I think if you had to look historically, this draft probably isn't great.' That was what was taken, but if we do our job and we do everything right, we're going to be able to get a good player with every pick, and that's our intention. I feel that way about every draft. No matter what happens, there are always avenues and ways to improve the team. About the positions, I mean, I think it's a pretty strong draft on the offensive and defensive line. Secondary, maybe not as much. Receiver and tight end are pretty good in comparison to some of the recent years. So, we're excited about some of these opportunities, and there are some matchups to some positions of need for us.

Q: I remember in 2024, you said you're implementing a new scouting system, and it's going to take some time. Where are you now in Year 3, kind of implementing this new process?

EW: It wasn't necessarily a whole new scouting system. The grading scale changed a little bit. Again, we're still looking for big, fast, strong, tough, the same things everybody's looking for. I think just having another year of working with Coach [Mike] Vrabel, his staff and Ryan. We have two first-year area scouts, just getting those guys acclimated. I think that it's just the time on task, the ability to continue to work together and understand that we're all on the same page and pulling together in the right direction.

Q: On the decision to release Joshua Dobbs, I'm curious, how are you looking at this quarterback class, maybe for later rounds to fill that third spot potentially?

EW: We've evaluated all the quarterbacks. We're continuing to do that. We're looking at some pro options as well. It was really less about Josh specifically and more about the development and growth that we saw from Tommy DeVito in his practice reps last year. He was, as Josh was as well, a great resource for Drake. We'll continue to evaluate the position, whether that's draft, a pro free agent, a college free agent or however it ends up falling.

Q: I know at the Combine, you said you anticipated Morgan Moses coming back for 2026. Is that still the expectation?

EW: Yes. That's our expectation. I texted Morgan; it was probably closer to the Combine, just saying hi. I know Coach Vrabel's in contact with him. No indication that he's looking to move on, and I think he's excited about coming back up here and getting started.

Q: In a vacuum, best player available is probably what you'd like to do with each of your picks, but how important is positional value in factoring in the future at some positions where maybe you have some older players?

EW: I think it's easy to look at a piece of paper or a depth chart right now and just kind of see what our needs are right this second, but you also have to factor in who's going to be a free agent next year because this isn't just a one-year filler. This is a long-term commitment, especially with the early-round guys that you think are going to be there. So, I like to look at it more along the lines of what don't we need? Because there's a lot less of that when you look at it that way. Center is always a good one. If you have two really good centers, well, you're not going to draft a third center because it just – everything has to work together. So, I think about it as, what can we eliminate from consideration? Especially when you're picking down at 31 and at the end of these rounds, it's a little bit harder to predict exactly who's going to be there. So, you just have to make sure that you're going to pick a good football player at any point.

Q: What is your sense of who's going to be there when you're picking down at 31?

EW: I think the right guy will be there. Tim Terry, who I used to work with in Green Bay, used to say that all the time. I think it's tough to predict. If you just go look at the board right now and just say, 'Hey, who are the 30 names that are not going to be there?' It's pretty difficult. So, we'll just kind of continue to gather information and continue to evaluate and explore options, whether that's going up, going back, whatever the case may be.

Q: Eliot, do you think that you guys have improved this team from the one that walked off the field at the Super Bowl to this point in the offseason?

EW: Yeah, I think so. With some of the free agent moves that we've done – primarily that because we haven't done a lot of other things. But yeah, I think so, and then we'll continue to supplement it. We've definitely increased our flexibility in terms of what exactly the needs – again, the needs on paper are just for this year, but yeah, I think we've improved.

Q: You have – between the age of some starters, expiring contracts with ballooning payments, and the drafts previous to last year – which was great – didn't really yield a lot. You might have a lot of depth issues. Are you looking at – we'll concentrate on the first four picks – but you kind of could use all 11 to take your shots and build depth at different positions?

EW: Yeah, I mean, I think depth is important, obviously. I think the more picks that you have, the better chances you have of hitting on players. We have four sixes right now. If we had one six, it probably puts more pressure on us to have that player be successful. But yeah, I think every team is different in terms of where the depth is. I think we have depth at some positions. We'd like to improve depth at others, and I don't think that's unique.

Q: What would you like to see from here to the draft as far as – you mentioned it's not finalized? What conversations do you like to have so that when you get ready to go here, you're good to go and A, B, C, D, E?

EW: Really, I would say kind of combining information. We have four players here today on pre-draft visits and just making sure, getting with the coaches and seeing how those went. The coaches Zoom a lot of players to try to get a feel for them. How will this guy fit into my room? Is he going to be able to learn multiple positions? Is he just going to be a one-position guy Year 1? Just kind of continuing to compile all that information and make sure that we're drafting the guys that are going to have the best chance to succeed.

Q: A question about a couple of veterans. Any updates on where things stand with Christian Gonzalez, and are you guys keeping the door open with the Eagles for A.J. Brown?

EW: No Gonzalez update other than I'll continue to publicly say that we want Christian here. Again, he's under contract, so we would expect that. As far as players on other teams, again, going to keep the door open to anything that we think may improve our roster, whether that's with the player you mentioned or other players.

Q: There's a report that this year might be more of a trade-heavy draft. Is that something that you already have sensed, or do you feel like that crystallizes closer to the action?

EW: Again, I think that can sometimes be tough to predict. There's always waves within a draft. I think it was maybe the sixth round last year, there was a rush of trades, four right in a row. I don't know how people know that. I don't know if the report that you saw was more first round. Maybe it's true for the first round. I've already heard that there's – no one's called us yet, but I've already heard that there's teams that have been calling around looking to move up. Kind of more on the front end of the draft, but I think we'll just kind of continue to monitor it and see what happens.

Q: Eliot, how involved has Mike [Vrabel] been in the pre-draft meetings over the course of last week?

EW: Very involved. I mean, business as usual. I would say he's been in there with us probably – this round of meetings, probably a little bit more than he was last year, just because I know, there's the coaching staff, he's probably more – this is me putting words in his mouth – probably more comfortable just where things stand from that standpoint. But he's been in there. He's been contributing. He's watched a ton of the players. I think he tries to watch every player that we give to each position coach. He watches that whole – they call it the coaches list. So, he has an opinion on these guys, and it's helpful because sometimes there are players that the scouts like, me included, and he'll be like, "Well, this is the reason that maybe this guy's not the best fit for us." So, we can, again, continue to compile all the information together.

Q: You ran down some of the positions in the draft earlier. You mentioned at the Combine looking at a linebacker in the draft. What are your thoughts on that position as a whole in this year's class?

EW: Yeah, I think it's solid. I think it's probably a little bit similar to the way it was last year. Maybe, for me at least, I thought there were – I thought it was going to be a little bit better than maybe that's come out, but I do think it's a good position Day 3 from a depth standpoint. I think there's a lot of players that you could justify using a Day 3 pick on.

Q: You mentioned the 30 visits, having players in. Do you max out on those? How important are those to you when you ultimately turn in the card?

EW: Yeah, we'll use all 30 and plus, because you get to – we get BC [Boston College] and UConn, and some of those guys that didn't come in for Local Day have come in separately. It's very important. We bring guys in for a variety of reasons, whether it's to get medical, to get them in front of Mike. If it's a guy we like that doesn't have a lot of red flags, we're like, 'Hey, Mike's going to love this guy.' We do some of that. Don't tell Mike that [jokingly]. Then if there's some questions about the character, their learning, the position fit or again, like one that I mentioned earlier, we think this guy is definitely going to be able to play X receiver, but we want to bring him in and make sure that we think he can play multiple spots and how early could that be. So, there's a variety of reasons that we bring guys in. They've been great this year. We haven't eliminated anyone, as we've done in the past. So, it's been positive.

Q: What are the analytics? How do they play into what you do, and how have you continued over the years to have the numbers come in?

EW: We hired Max Mulitz, who was previously with the Dolphins, and he's working in conjunction with the personnel department. He's been in all of our meetings, and he's been great. Every player has a profile. The thing I like, particularly, about Max is he's not so married to the data that he can't – we'll retort him and say, 'Well, what about this?' And he has enough common sense to be like, 'Well yeah, that makes sense as a reason that the model gives this projection. Let me adjust it a little bit.' So, it's been pretty cool to kind of integrate that into our process. Really, like anything, it helps with outliers. If he's got a model that says the guy should be a fourth rounder and all of us have him in the seventh round, to me that is cause for us to go back and ask questions. Why is that the case? Do we need to sit down and watch more film on this guy? To me, that's the role. It's to help you get as much information as you can to make the right decisions.

Q: Eliot, what you guys have on the edge, you talked at the Combine about how that's a position you need for you guys. You've signed Dre'Mont Jones. It feels like there's some different body types, though, in this year's draft class at that position. Do you prefer what you have right now in terms of complementing what you have? Do you feel like you need that smaller, faster guy that might be better on third down or better to have the bigger body?

EW: Oh, I never want a smaller guy. No, faster guy. I said I never want a smaller guy. Yeah, we could complement our room with some speed. I think that's evident. Dre'Mont, Harold [Landry III], Elijah [Ponder] and some of the other guys we have, they all have their skill sets. We would like to get faster. Dre'Mont's a guy that can play across the line, run games. I mean, he can sneaky beat you with speed, but that's probably not his bread and butter. So, that's an area that we're looking to try to improve the depth on the roster.