Who Will Have Final Say Over Patriots’ Personnel? Robert Kraft Responds

Patriots owner Robert Kraft does not have a “fixed formula” regarding New England’s personnel department. Instead, Kraft plans to have a collaborative short-term approach while evaluating what the organization has internally and holding external conversations.

When introducing Jerod Mayo as the 15th head coach in Patriots history at Gillette Stadium on Wednesday, Kraft was asked who will have final say in the personnel department. Bill Belichick, who parted ways with the organization last week, served as both head coach and de facto general manager for much of his two-plus decades in New England.

“We know we have a lot of people internally who have had a chance to train and learn under the greatest coach of all time, a man whose football intellect is very special,” Kraft told reporters. “So in the short term, we’re looking for collaboration as our team has a tremendous opportunity to position itself right, given our salary cap space, and we’ve never drafted, in my 30 years of ownership, we’ve never been drafting as low as we’re drafting.

“So we’re counting on our internal people, whom we’re still learning and evaluating. So we’re going to let that evolve and develop, and before the key decisions have to be made, we will appoint someone. And at the same time, we’ll probably start doing interviews and looking at people from the outside. But my bias has always been, in all our family companies, to try to develop a culture from within where we understand one another.”

Kraft stressed that before the Patriots rush to hire anyone, they want to understand what they already have. He called it “an important question.”

Kraft later was asked if he planned to name a general manager. Kraft again said he wanted to evaluate internal options.

“As I said, this is the first time in a quarter of a century we had to make major changes. We want to see what we have in-house, look what’s out there in the marketplace and then do what we think is right.

“I know people have ideas, but I can just assure you, any decision we make at this time will be to try to give the support to Jerod and put the organization in the best place it can to win games. We don’t have a fixed formula, we’re gonna — we know what’s worked for us in the past, and that’s what we’re going to do here in the future.”

It’s been reported Patriots director of scouting Eliot Wolf could get a significant promotion. Matt Groh, the director of player personnel, also could lead the charge.

Mayo echoed Kraft’s sentiments about the importance of collaboration. Mayo said he believes in “leaning on experts in their field.” He said he will go into it with no expectations and look to learn as much as he can from those inside One Patriot Place.