INDIANAPOLIS -- Though there may be some haziness at the top of the proverbial front office depth chart in Foxboro, Mike Vrabel indicated Tuesday at the NFL Scouting Combine that he's going to have the ability to make the key decisions on the Patriots roster moving forward.
He will collaborate with the front office staff, he explained, including executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf and new vice president of player personnel Ryan Cowden. But when asked explicitly who would make the final call on personnel decisions for the Patriots, Vrabel immediately highlighted one individual: himself.
"I wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't have wanted to be the head coach here if I wasn't comfortable in my impact on the roster," Vrabel said. "We want to continue to have great conversations with the personnel staff, with me, with [vice president of football operations and strategy John "Stretch" Streicher], with coaching. We're all just trying to find the ways to bring the right players in here.
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"Whether that's the first part of free agency, middle of free agency... the draft, there's gonna be players who get released we'll have to pivot to and have options. We need to strengthen the roster. We understand that and have some really good conversations about how we get there."
Vrabel went through multiple rounds of media availability periods Tuesday, first taking to the podium at the Indianapolis Convention Center to meet with reporters from a wide variety of locales. Later he sat with Sirius XM NFL Radio and Patriots.com before sitting down with local reporters for about 15 minutes.
Wolf will meet with reporters on Wednesday afternoon. A year ago at this time, Wolf made it clear that -- though the 2024 Patriots wanted a collaborative process when it came to roster building -- someone had to function as tiebreaker, and that would be him.
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Wolf will be back to work with in a different capacity this year as part of Vrabel's front office, where he's on the books as the chief executive but in that position to serve Vrabel.
Cowden will work in close proximity to Wolf, bringing with him years of experience working alongside Vrabel in Tennessee. He was vice president of player personnel for the Titans beginning during Vrabel's first season there in 2018. He then later briefly replaced Jon Robinson as interim general manager in 2022.
Cowden was with the Giants the last two seasons as executive advisor to the general manager Joe Schoen.
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"He really taught me the ropes early on in the scouting industry, and we've been really good friends since," Schoen told reporters on Tuesday. "You're getting a hard worker. You're getting a really good leader. You're getting a hell of an evaluator. Really good move by coach Vrabel and the Patriots organization to bring him in."
Vrabel explained the reasoning behind Cowden's hire, saying, "I believe in what Ryan can do and the impact that he can make with our organization with personnel, to help Eliot and that crew, and to just help us get the right players in here."
Vrabel will have help in the form of Cowden, Wolf, director of player personnel Matt Groh, director of college scouting Cam Williams, director of pro personnel Pat Stewart and others. But he made it clear that as head coach he intends to "impact" the Patriots roster -- and is confident in his ability to do so.