New England Patriots’ “Forged In Foxborough” REVEALS Front Office Dynamics

New England Patriots’ “Forged In Foxborough” REVEALS Front Office Dynamics

A behindthescenes look at the relationship between Vrabel Cen and Wolf. That’s where we start on this episode of Lockdown Patriots. You are Locked On Patriots, your daily New England Patriots podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. What’s up, Patriots fans? I’m your host, Nick Cattles, born and raised in New England. your New England Patriots expert, host of the Everything Pats podcast, co-host of the Greg Bedard Patriots podcast with Nick Catles, and also a sports talk show host veteran. On today’s episode, the details of one of the biggest draft weekend decisions are revealed and we get video proof of how much the Patriots, let’s be honest, were feeling themselves early in the 2025 NFL draft. But first, a real time look of how the front office works together. We appreciate you joining the show, making us your first listen and for being an everydayer. The Lockdown Patriots podcast is a proud partner of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Forged in Foxboro is a new docue series from the Patriots. It’s on YouTube. If you haven’t watched the first episode, I would highly recommend the first episode of this docue series. And in that first episode, what we saw was a real- time representation of the power trio working well together. Now, who is the power trio who consists of that trio? Well, Mike Vrabel obviously is a part of that trio. Elliot Wolf is a part of that trio. And Ryan Cen is also a part of that trio. The guys who right there sitting in that draft room were making the decisions. the power trio within the Patriots organization in front of the cameras and for all of us to see during this first episode of Forged in Foxboro. And I thought it showed us an awful lot. Let’s begin with Ryan Cen. Cen during the first episode mentions that he has known Elliot Wolf for about 20 years now. Now, he hasn’t worked with Elliot Wolf before, but he has some kind of a relationship with Wolf because they’ve both been in NFL scouting for a couple of decades. And when you work that long in the league, you are bound to run into each other, have conversations. So, there is an existing relationship between Cowan and Wolfe. And sometimes I think that gets overlooked. When Mike Vrabel brought Cen in, as soon as he got the job here in New England as the head coach, we all wondered what did that mean for Wolf? What did that mean for his future? Well, Cowan has a relationship with Wolf. It doesn’t mean they’re close, but they had some kind of relationship for a number of years before Cen was brought in. They’ve obviously had conversations between each other, before they worked together here in Foxboro. So, the fact that Ryan Cen has known Elliot Wolf for almost 20 years or about 20 years, I do think that means something. And I thought you could see that relationship and really respect between the two guys throughout this first episode and especially during draft weekend. It was also obvious if you were watching that Elliot Wolf was the point man in this operation. Doesn’t mean he made the final decision. I’ll get to that a little bit later. But watching this first episode of Forged in Foxboro, it was obvious that Elliot Wolf played a major role in this draft. He was the point man. He was the guy that was constantly on the phone. And what I found interesting was the Wolf Cen collaboration was key to this operation. The back and forth between Wolf and Cowen. It was a healthy dialogue. Wol kept going to Ryan Cen asking him his thoughts about trades and which trade scenario made the most sense. Would they want to move down? Would they want to move up? And those conversations from what we saw in this first episode, those conversations were mostly had by Wolf and Cen and their collaboration throughout the draft was obviously vital to how things went during that weekend. Meanwhile, Mike Vrabel, who I thought would be a little bit more influential, was not as overwhelming as expected in that room. And what I mean by that is if you expected Mike Vrabel to be standing in front of the room giving directions, giving orders, uh, asking Elliot Wolf and Cen certain questions, putting their feet to the fire. From what we saw, and we have to remember this is from the team, which I’ll talk about in a minute, but from what we saw during this first episode, Rabel let Wolf and Cen do their job. He let them go back and forth and have these conversations. He would weigh in every once in a while, but his influence in that room during those conversations was not as overwhelming as I had expected. And so that was a little bit of a surprise. Now, with that said, Vrabel absolutely had final say. And there were a couple of instances where Elliot Wolf would look at Vrabel and say, “Are we okay doing this? Are you okay doing this?” And I thought that showed us what we’ve been talking about over the last few months, that this is Mike Vrabel’s program. He is running it. And he is going to make the final decisions. He talks to the scouting staff. He works with Couten and Wolf. He gives them the player profiles. They go to him with thoughts. They go to him with scenarios. They have these conversations with other NFL GMs and, you know, player personnel chiefs. And after those conversations, inevitably, it ends up in front of Vrabel and he gives a thumbs up or thumbs down. And we did see that in a couple of instances during this first episode that Vel, yes, he does have the final say. He does have the final yes or no, but he’s not getting involved within the minutia in bothering Cen and Wolf. He’s not getting in the way. He’s letting them have these conversations and then they loop him in. I thought that Vrabel really gave the room, the draft room. I thought he gave the room to the front office for the most part. Now, when the decision had to be made, and he made it, he was obviously involved at a high level and he got on the phone and he spoke to each prospect and Cen didn’t, which makes sense. The phone went from Cam Williams making the call, who’s no longer with the program as we know, went to Denver. We found that out last week, but Cam Williams calls the prospect, gives the phone to Elliot Wolf first. Wolf talks to the player, says, “We’re drafting you.” phone goes to Vrabel and then from Vrabel it goes to Robert Craft. But Wolfe, he was absolutely involved and he was a big part of what was going on during that draft and you could see it throughout that episode. But I just thought it was interesting that Vrabel, I’m not going to say hands off. He wasn’t hands off. I mean, don’t get it twisted. again, he’s got the final say and he is involved and he has major influence, but it seemed like it it wasn’t an overwhelming influence in that room. It seemed like everybody had their voice heard, everybody knew their role, and they had a back and forth that was fruitful. And I know we’ve heard the word collaboration a lot, and some people they get all freaked out. They get cringed out by the word collaboration. Collaboration is what happens. That’s what happens in front offices. That’s what happens across the NFL. It’s what happens in the NBA. It doesn’t mean that, you know, anybody can make a decision. The final decision goes to one person. We know that’s varable. But what we saw in that video from Forged in Foxboro during the draft, what we saw throughout that video was a collaboration. Wolf and Cen dealing with all the conversations. Getting back to Vrabel. Varbel, what do you think? Do you want to do it? Yes or no? Boom. It’s done. Now, as I said a couple of minutes ago, we do have to remember that this is from the team and we’re not seeing, at least I don’t think we’re seeing the entire picture. So, from what we saw, Vrabel’s influence was not overwhelming in the room and he wasn’t breathing down the neck of Wolf and Cen, but that’s what we saw. And what we see is what we’re being allowed to see. So, we don’t know if there were other moments that were captured on video that might represent a a difference of opinion regarding this relationship between these three guys. This is what we see and this is what we see because this is what the Patriots want us to see. Now, the conversation about the pick at number 38 I thought was eyeopening and we’ll get to that in just a couple of minutes in the next segment. But just remember that this is a Patriots produced show and they are going to show us what they want to show us. They had a conversation about Kyle Williams, for example during, you know, the Senior Bowl and they highlighted Kyle Williams and how he had the best day for a receiver. That doesn’t get into the first episode if they don’t draft Kyle Williams. So, there’s going to be some pumping of the tires, but from what I saw, it certainly seemed like Cen, Wolf, Vrabel worked very well together. They respect each other. and Vrabel gave his lieutenants in the front office the latitude to go back and forth and hammer some things out and then come to him and say yes or no. And that’s the way it should work. And so I I thought it was a really fun look and it gives us a little deeper of an understanding as far as how these guys work together and those relationships that that they have formed, especially from Elliot Wolf’s side who is new to this equation given cow and varel work together in Tennessee. We now have the details behind one of the biggest decisions the Pats made during draft weekend. That’s coming up next as we continue with today’s episode of Lockdown Patriots, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every [Music] day. Say goodbye to sticky notes, scribbled plans on the fridge, and overlapping calendar invites. The Skylight Calendar is here to bring clarity to the chaos and help families stay organized without the stress. This sleek digital display syncs with your existing calendars, Google, Apple, Outlook, and more, making it simple to track appointments, practices, dinners, and reminders all in one easy to see place. I mean, what would it mean to eliminate the I didn’t know excuse from your family’s routine? How often do plans get missed because they’re buried in a digital calendar or not written down at all? I have issues as a single person, one person in my household here, along with my wife. If I have issues at times remembering what I’m supposed to do because it gets buried in my calendar, I can’t imagine bigger families. Must be crazy. Well, right now, Skylight is offering our listeners $30 off their 15inch calendars by going to skylightcal.com/n. Go to skylightcal.com/n for $30 off your 15inch calendar. That is sllig.com. [Music] The Patriots must really love Trayvon Henderson. That was one of the takeaways I had when watching the first episode of Forged in Foxboro. They must love Trayvon Henderson because we now have the details of what was offered to them for them to trade the 38th pick in the draft going back several weeks ago. We found out that the Patriots had a deal on the table. It was offered number 58, number 79 in a 2026 third round pick. So they could have traded number 38 and gotten 5879 in a third round pick in next year’s draft for that pick that ended up being Tayvon Henderson and putting two and two together. The fact that Houston had the 58th pick in the draft before they traded it to the Raiders, that tells us Nick Cacerio, the Houston Texans, they wanted to jump up 20 spots. They wanted to go from 58 to 38 to draft somebody. We don’t know if that would have been Henderson or somebody else, but they desperately wanted to make that jump. And they offered 5879 and a third round pick in next year’s draft to make that jump. That’s a pretty good return for the Patriots. I know you’re dropping 20 spots from 38 to 58, but you’re talking about, you know, a second round pick, a third round pick, and a third round pick in next year’s draft. That’s a pretty decent haul for the 38th pick in the draft. And the Patriots said no. They thought about it. They went back and forth. Wolf and Cen had a conversation. Vel got looped into that conversation. Everybody was talking. All three of those guys were going back and forth with their thoughts, their ideas. What should we do? What should we not do? But in the end, as Elliot Wolf told us right after the second day of the draft, Elliot Wolf had said that there was a debate about the 38th pick. Now, Wol said that the debate about the 38th pick was about a player who ended up getting drafted, which we think is the guard that got drafted by the Miami Dolphins at 37 when the Dolphins traded up to 37 to draft the guard. We say that because there’s a reason why they leaprogged the Patriots. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Elliot Wolf is out there telling us that, yeah, we had a back and forth. We had a debate about who we were going to pick at number 38, but then that guy was drafted. So, if you look at it, what we didn’t know were the details behind what was offered to the Patriots. Cuz Wolfe also said that they were on the phone, they were talking trade, and that they really kind of let the clock go down to about the final minute before the decision was made. And that’s what you see from this episode of Forged in Foxboro. you see that deliberation process and it was about 58 seconds or so when the Patriots made their decision that they were going to draft Henderson and not make the deal. Now, a few things about Trayvon Henderson, the decision to draft Henderson, the decision to turn down that trade offer. And I start with Ryan Cen again because Cowen I thought made the most important comment throughout that back and forth. Elliot Wolf told Cen what the offer was. He said, “Look, we 5879 and a 2026 third round pick or he said a third round pick in next year’s draft.” Cen takes in that information and cowen said quote these 20 guys or who we think has the biggest impact who could have the biggest impact for us like right now and that’s the question that cowan asked Wol and that’s the question that inevitably also was put to Vrabel which is to say look we’re sitting at 38 if we go from 38 to 58 we have to compare we’ve got to look at those 20 guys the next 20 names on the board and we have to look at, okay, do we want to side with these 20 guys or do we want to side with who we think will give us the biggest impact? And they clearly thought at that point Trayvon Henderson, the impact that Henderson could give to this football team in 2025 was much more important than the 20 guys that were going to follow that pick at 38. much more important. They did not want to lose the opportunity to draft Trayvon Henderson. And with that offer on the table, that should tell you how much they loved Trayvon Henderson. And it also tells us that the Patriots in that moment, they went with best player available because they were looking at their grading system. They were looking at their board. They saw the next 20 names on their list and they said, “No, we want the impact of Henderson because we think he’s the best player available. They trusted their board. They trusted their grading of Henderson. They believe in him and they believe that his impact day one for this football team is going to be much more crucial than what the other 20 guys could have given them if they decided to trade from 38 to 58. So, I thought that was a great look into the process when Cen asks that question and they think about it and they inevitably draft Henderson BPA because they trust their board and because they love Henderson. Now, there was another offer that was on the table for the Patriots, and this one was much less sexy, but there is a portion of this conversation that we see where Matt Gro is also on the phone, and Matt Gro tells Wol that Chicago has called and Chicago is offering a seventh round pick to swap 38 and 39. The Bears were going to be on the clock at 39. They offered the Patriots a seventh round pick to jump up to 38. Just swap 38 and 39. And you would have to imagine, now maybe I’m wrong, but to me, and I know Mike Reese wrote this as well, he had the same thought. When you’re watching this play out, it feels like Ben Johnson now with Chicago had his eyes on Henderson. And if that is the case, if that’s the case, then you should feel really good about Henderson. If you didn’t feel really good about him already, you should feel really good about him now. Ben Johnson is highly respected, known as one of the best play callers in all of football. Of course, that time in Detroit, he had two running backs. Who’s the guy that Trayvon Henderson at times has been compared to? That would be Jir Gibbs. Johnson had Gibbs in Detroit. So, it makes all the sense in the world that Johnson wanted to jump up one spot to draft Henderson. if that’s what he wanted to do because he had David Montgomery and Jir Gibbs as the one-two punch in Detroit and he wanted that electricity that Gibbs brings, he wanted that in his back field and obviously thought Henderson would bring that electricity to his backfield in Chicago. So when we talk about the Patriots, as I mentioned during draft weekend, they’ll have some thunder and lightning. Raandre Stevenson and Trayvon Henderson. Well, that’s really what you look at with the Lions, and that’s that’s what you’re trying to create here, and Ben Johnson was thinking the same thing. I do wonder who Chicago was afraid of. They obviously thought somebody was going to trade up to 38 and maybe they got word about the Texans and said, “Hey, we’ll give you the seventh round pick to swap 38 39 so you don’t drop 20 spots and you get an extra lottery ticket.” But it should make you feel even better about Henderson, the fact that Chicago and Ben Johnson were looking at him and wanted to to pull that swap off. One quick thing as well with the Henderson draft pick. Elliot Wolf had a lighter moment with the room when when he ends up saying after they draft Henderson, he talks about Vable, Cam Williams, and Stretch John Striker and says that he was, you know, pretty much outnumbered three to one. Those are the three Ohio State guys. And I do think connections matter. Connections matter. The idea that you got three guys that went to Ohio State, they obviously get great information on Trayvon Henderson and that helps the evaluation process. Forged in Foxboro shows the Pats franchise felt like a lot of fans felt during the early portion of the 2025 draft. That’s coming up next as we continue with today’s episode of Lockdown Patriots, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. [Music] Forged in Foxboro, the video of the draft room told us everything we needed to know about how this organization felt as the draft was moving. It was clear. It was clear to me. If you go back and you watch this episode and you watch the draft room through the Kyle Williams pick when the Patriots draft Williams at 69, go back and just watch the reaction from Vrabel, from Wol, from Cen, from the scouts in the room, from Cam Williams. Go back and watch everybody’s reaction once that pick is done with. And the vibes, the vibes that I picked up from watching that moment was we are absolutely killing this draft. We are running the show. We are dominating this weekend so far. That was the vibe that I got watching that and and I watched it a couple of times. This was a front office. This was a scouting staff. This was an organization. The crafts were in there as well. This was an organization that as they watched the early portion of this draft play out, the Drake the I almost said the Drake May pick. That was last year, Nick. The Will Campbell pick, the Trayvon Henderson pick, the fact that they decided not to deal the 38th pick and picked Henderson and then drafting Kyle Williams. You could tell after the first three picks, this was an organization feeling themselves. They felt fantastic about how the first three picks played out. Now, I’m sure you would watch a lot of teams around the NFL, and I I doubt there would be teams that were sitting in the corner in the fetal position after the first couple of rounds, right? Sure, you could look at a lot of footage and every team feels like they did great. But there was just this air of confidence that seeped through as I watched this. I said to myself, “These guys are really confident what they’ve accomplished.” Like they they feel really good. And I remember saying this, I tweeted this as well when Elliot Wol spoke to the media after the uh I think it was after the second round and third round and Wol went out there. It was on Yeah, it was on Friday night and Wol goes out there and I mentioned it at the time. Wolf with the media. That was the most confident that I have ever seen Elliot Wolf with the media. And he just had this swag to him almost of we just killed this. All of you are going to love this. I’m not gonna have to face certain questions. Elliot Wolf on that night just seemed to me to show everybody that they were really happy with what they did and what they had accomplished. And when you watch the video in real time when this is playing out when they draft Kyle Williams, you can see that. And I think it goes back to the decision that we discussed in the last segment deciding not to trade the 38th pick. Because during that conversation, Rael brings up wide receiver and says something along the lines of, you know, well, maybe we go get, you know, one of the receivers that we like. I read that as if the Patriots made the trade and they went from 38 to 58, then it is a real possibility the Patriots would have drafted a wide receiver at 58. Would that receiver have been Kyle Williams? I don’t know. But it’s quite possible. So when you have that context, when you have that as background information, it makes even more sense why they were very happy in that room and Elliot Wolf walked out to that press conference on that Friday night like he had just owned the NFL draft. Because if they were looking at Kyle Williams and said, “Well, if we trade from 38 to 58, we lose the chance to draft Trayvon Henderson. Who would we draft at 58?” Well, maybe we’d go with a receiver. Maybe that guy would end up being Kyle Williams and you’d have Williams be the pick at 58. And when you think about what really happened, the Patriots drafted Trayvon Henderson at 38 and they end up with Williams at 69. So if if they were looking at Williams as a possibility, if not probability at 58, and they got him at 69, when you look back at it, you go, man, we we got Trayvon Henderson cuz we didn’t pull the trigger on that trade and we still got a receiver that we love at 69 who we probably would have drafted at 58. And that means they read the board correctly and they read that moment correctly. And when that happens, right, that that’s almost like affirmation because you land Henderson at 38 and then you come back and you get Williams at 69, it means that the process that you just went through, which was a difficult debate because Houston’s offer was a good one. When you go back and you look at it, if you’re cowing, Vrabel, or Wolfe, you feel really good about the decision that you made in real time when you’re going up against the clock and you say to yourself, “We did it right. We landed the guy who’s going to have the biggest impact on our football team right now. And we still ended up with the receiver that we love. We read the board correctly. We read the moment correctly. And our conversation, our process got us to the right result. Another thing that stood out to me, and this might have been a little bit of a smaller detail within some of the bigger stuff we’ve discussed on this episode, but we always talk about top 30 visits during the pre-draft process. Do they matter? How much do they matter? Are teams bringing guys in to try to fool other teams and make them believe that they’re interested in those top 30 visit guys, or is this team handling their business in the pre-draft process as genuinely as they can? And those top 30 visits are guys that they are genuinely interested in. And I and I found it compelling that when Vrabel got on the phone with Kyle Williams after the Patriots drafted him, Vrabel mentioned the top 30 visit and Vrabel told Williams that his top 30 visit made an impact and that everybody in that room fell in love with him. And so for for this player, for this specific draft with this specific pick, the top 30 visit absolutely meant something. I don’t know if the Patriots draft Williams if it’s not for the top 30 visit. The fact that Vrabel went right to that tells me the importance of his visit and whatever he said in that room, whatever he did with the coaching staff, Kyle Williams sold himself to the Patriots during that visit. And so we we have to stick a pin in that and keep it for future consideration. The next time we see next draft season, we see the top 30 visit names, we should take them seriously because of what Vrabel said to Williams on the phone. top 30 visits with this regime. They matter. You know what else matters? Scouting. And that was so obvious throughout this first episode, how much the scouts mean to this operation. And Matt Evans, who was the scout who was really fighting for Jared Wilson when the Patriots make the decision to draft Wilson at 95. Evans is all fired up and you know Jared Wilson is is crying during his phone call which was a great moment during this episode. But Matt Evans, you could see the ownership that he has within that pick. Jared Wilson was his guy. He did the work on him. And Elliot Wolf said during the show, during this episode that, you know, we talk to our scouts. We involve our scouts. Not every team does that. And and Elliot Wolf has been in multiple organizations. He has a lot of friends in the NFL. He said, “Not every front office, not not every draft room lets scouts weigh in during the draft, but we do.” And I think that’s because of Wolfe’s past as a scout. He respects them. He respects their knowledge and their evaluations and he makes them a part of that weekend. And you saw that. I I thought that was really cool. And we also saw the impact of Cam Williams who has now gone to Denver. Running scouting meetings on the phone all draft weekend. Somebody’s going to have to fill that role. But I walked away from this episode feeling really good about the operation. I did about the communication, the collaboration. I thought it was good. All right, that wraps up this edition of Lockdown Patriots. On tomorrow’s show, an in-depth look at Keon White. Let me know your thoughts on today’s topics. Reach out to me on Twitter at Nickc Radio and don’t forget to throw a comment in on the YouTube channel. Thank you for making Lockdown Patriots your first listen today. For your second listen, check out Locked On NFL Scouting. Kyle Krabs, Joe Marino will make you the most informed NFL fan this off season. Find Locked On Scouting on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Have a great day and I will see you tomorrow.

The New England Patriots decision making trio of Mike Vrabel, Eliot Wolf, and Ryan Cowden were showcased in the first episode of the team’s new docuseries – “Forged In Foxborough.” What’d we learn about their working relationship?

Also, TreVeyon Henderson was at the heart of one of the biggest draft weekend decisions made by the New England Patriots. After the docuseries’ first episode, we have more details regarding said decision. Meanwhile, other observations from the show that left a lasting impression.

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