Hey, what's up everybody?

Welcome into Tom Caron's Patriots Talk podcast.

We're at Albert Breer.

We're going to take a step back and get his national perspective on the Patriots and all the storylines that are going on around them. Phil will be in later in the week. Don't you worry about a thing? We're going to start to get knee deep on the draft with him. Talk about some of the guys who've been in for 30 visits and what we can glean from that and look into some of the players that they've kicked tires on. But right now we have Albert in. Albert, thanks for coming. No problem, Tom. I appreciate you. You're the best. I wanted to talk to you about Elliot Wolfe. Yep. Because, you know, I thought in a lot of ways it was kind of a prove-a-year for him last year. And he had an unbelievable year. The personnel department did, Ryan Cowden, but between the free agent

signings, which one after the other surpassed expectation to a draft that yielded in the first

five picks, players of value and who have potential upside from Wilson to Woodson to Kyle Williams

to the first two picks, Henderson and Will Campbell.

But Elliot Wolf is going to be pressed this season.

Picking at 31, it's not the deepest draft.

Where do you think the Patriots stand with Elliot Wolf right now?

And of the job he's done, what's your opinion?

I think he's on solid footing now. And I think a big part of proving it this year is proving you can work with Mike Frable because I think clearly Frable was going to be the tip of the spear. It took a lot to get him. He had leverage to ask for what he wanted because he had options. You know, there aren't that many head coaches that head coaching candidates that have options multiple

teams wanting them like was one of those um but i i think like the mistake people make is

thinking that like if you inherit a general manager if you're a coach or a coach if you're a general

manager that you will automatically be at loggerheads with them and it doesn't always work that way

and i think we've seen some examples now across the league of this actually working in Denver. Perfect example. George Peyton, I think everybody thought Sean Payton was going to blow him out of there. And George Payton, and this is where I get to Elliott. What George Peyton did was he learned Sean Payton system. Okay, what do you want? You tell me exactly what you need. And Sean Payton was so specific about what he wanted in every single position, what were the non-negotiables.

It made George Payton's job easier, effectively made George Payton better at his job.

And they've wound up working really well together.

Another example from last year would be in Chicago with Ben Johnson and Ryan Poles.

Ryan Poles survives the firing of Matt Eberfluse. And Ben Johnson comes in. Again, Ben's a young coach, not an experienced head coach like Frabel or Peyton, but had a really strong idea of what he wanted. And, you know, what do they do? Will they go out and they get in the first round? Colston Loveland, who looks like he's had a chance to be one of the best tight ends in football because they had a real vision for him. And, you know, even now you see with John Harbaugh and Joe Shane. We'll see how that goes with the Giants. I think the key is that if it is a GM that survives, which was the GM that survived to firing here, the key really

is can he quickly assimilate to what the head coach wants and then help to bring the head coach's

vision to life? I think Elliot at his best is a facilitator. And what they were able to do in Green Bay at such a high level and have been able to do is take the head coach's vision and make it the front office's vision. And I think that that here, you see, like, Gerard Mayo had some strengths as a coach, for sure. He doesn't become the head coach if he didn't. I'm not sure Gerard Bay and his staff knew exactly what they wanted. And that made it really difficult for them in the 2024 off season. Going into 25,

...