Eliot Wolf's Terrible Year Continues as the Patriots Release Yet Another Starting Offensive Lineman
I am father to two young men. Which means that, according to how biology works, they were once teenage boys. It was during that time in my life I watched them earn their PhDs in Blowing Off Responsibilities. Smart kids. Terrible students. Who managed to find eight hours a day to fight the Battle of Stalingrad on Call of Duty or build up their Minecraft world, but when it came to homework assignments, posted more zeros than 1999-2000 Pedro Martinez. So they taught me a few things about how to recognize when someone isn't taking care of the tasks they're supposed to. (Actually, I was self-taught when I was their age too, as my Weymouth Public Schools report cards can confirm.)
I mention this not just because I'm working through my own failures as a father, but because I'm a Patriots fan. And we've all witnessed the same exact kind of dereliction of duty in the Year of Our Lord 2024. Every man, woman, child and gestating fetus in New England recognized that, after drafting Drake Maye, Eliot Wolf's second order of business was putting an offensive line in front of him. Now we've reached Thanksgiving, and he's still finding new ways to fail at this most essential of tasks:
That would be the Michael Jordan who's been the starting left guard on this team in every game but Week 4. The one who's second among all linemen in snaps. This guy:
The person I'm not blaming for Michael Jordan's failure is Michael Jordan. He was a 4th round pick in 2019 who's been kicking around the league and missed all of last season. His inability to protect Drake Maye or open up holes in the running game is squarely on the GM who hired him to be a solution to his team's very pressing needs.
And for the thousandth time this year, it's not like we didn't see this problem coming. Here's what I wrote just before the season, grading Wolf on how he met my list of offseason demands:
No More Shopping in the Discount Store for Offensive Linemen
Offensive line was a glaring need on this team for the past two years. This past year, the most glaring need was tackle. Highly regarded tackles were available in the draft. … Dollar General off-brand tackles for the franchise on a budget. Reilly Reiff. Conor McDermott. Vederian Lowe. Does anyone else remember the Calvin Anderson era? You don't have to get a tackle with the No. 3 pick. And goodness knows this team has a tradition of finding very good interior linemen in the sweet spot around the 4th round. But it can't be neglected another season. At the very least, we need next Matt Light or Sebastian Vollmer Round 2 home run. To do anything less would be dereliction of duty.
No need to mince words here.
Grade: F
And this, after the preseason game against Washington:
We're now five-plus months after Eliot Wolf decided not to make offensive tackle a priority in free agency. And four months since he more or less ignored the position in the draft. (Pundits consider Caeden Wallace more of an OG/OT 'tweener.) Yet with less than two weeks to go before kickoff, The Wolf is still shuffling his cards trying to find a winning hand….
And I can't wrap my feeble brain around the fact they're still experimenting with moving Michael Onwenu back to RT after putting him at RG for most of camp. Strap in and prepare yourself to be watching them all season long struggle to find a combination that works. Hint: This wasn't it.
And this, after the final preseason game:
On the night, the mistakes on the line included, Left to Right:
- Chuks Okorafor: 2 illegal formations
- Sow: Holding
- Nick Leverett: 2 mishandled snaps
- Robinson: False start, holding
- Michael Onwenu: Illegal formation
Just as a reminder in case you need it, this isn't OTAs. This is the result of months spent presumably addressing the offensive line, which every Masshole understood was the No. 2 priority for this franchise after quarterback. And while I'm a total believer that they've found the solution to the No. 1 priority, fat lot of good that does us if he's coming off the field grimacing like Jacoby Brissett did. This I tell you brother, you can't have one without the other.
So we can establish this situation snuck up on Wolf like Sir Lancelot:
Here's a list of the O-line additions the Patriots ended up making to address this No. 2 priority, in no particular order:
Michael Jordan: Gone
Nick Leverett: Gone
Chuks Okorafor (our Week 1 starting left tackle): Gone after 12 snaps
Caeden Wallace (68th overall pick): Injured
Layden Robinson 103rd overall pick): Bench
Ben Brown: Pro Football Focus' 57th highest graded center
Demontrey Jacobs: 40 pressures, 7 penalties in 10 games
Given all that, and with the benefit of three months' hindsight, I think that Grade: F was a little generous.
And for you more visual learners, here's the situation in chart form:
And on a handy graph. Hint: Look toward the low end of both the Y- and X-axis for your team:
And now we turn our lonely eyes to Lester Cotton, who's been riding the bench for the Dolphins. The good news? The day he puts on a Patriots uniform he'll be their highest graded offensive lineman according to PFF (67.0 to Michael Onwenu's 66.1). The bad news? He's played 61 total snaps, bringing his 4-year career total to 772. Which is slightly more than Joe Thuney and way less than Shaq Mason have … on the season. Meaning that, to be somewhat fair to Eliot Wolf after bashing him for almost a thousand words, he's still paying for the sins of the past.
But he knew the assignment when he took the job, and elected to blow it off. Or at the very least, not give it nearly the care and attention it deserved. And all the other failures of a 3-9 team are a direct result of that neglect. If I can offer some hope, let me go back to the way I opened this discussion. Once my kids went off to college, they figured it out, got their acts together and did the work. I wish they'd done it on my watch, but it worked out eventually. Wolf better do likewise starting with Day 1 of free agency and then the draft:
Because he won't get another shot if he does what he's done this year.