Raised by Wolf: Scouting legacy leading Patriots into new era

INDIANAPOLIS — Eliot Wolf attended his first combine 31 years ago as one of the easiest faces to identify.The 10-year-old son of Packers general manager Ron Wolf is back at the NFL Scouting Combine this week running the personnel department of an NFL team for the first time. Wolf is director of scouting for the New England Patriots, ushered in alongside new head coach Jerod Mayo in the changing of the guard sparked by Bill Belichick’s exit.”My dad used to sit down at the start of the 40s and it was him, Bill Parcells and Al Davis and I just sitting there like soaking it all up,” Eliot Wolf said Tuesday at his 30th combine (the 2021 event was called off due to COVID-19). “It was just tremendously rewarding. And, you know, kind of as I look back on it, it was you know definitely a special time.”The elder Wolf, 84, and Belichick have been associates for decades dating to Belichick’s father coaching at Navy.A scouting legend with the Raiders and Packers in his heyday who is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Ron Wolf attended training camp at Belichick’s request, even in recent summers, to advise on roster decisions and position competition.Belichick worked as coach but also wielded final say in personnel decisions, including the draft. One of the voices he called on most in recent years was Eliot Wolf, who had the same title as a scout with a diverse role under Belichick.Not only is Wolf following an all-time great, the 41-year-old holds the cards with New England’s first top-10 pick since drafting Mayo — a linebacker at Tennessee — in 2008.Patriots owner Robert Kraft didn’t knock down expectations or conjecture in labeling the 2024 draft the “most important in team history.”New England picks No. 3 in the first round and doesn’t have a franchise quarterback in the building at the moment. While much has changed, his Ron Wolf made this kind of call — he acquired Brett Favre from the Atlanta Falcons and drafted Matt Hasselbeck, Mark Brunell and Aaron Brooks as backups while in Green Bay — there are hints in the draft history books.

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