Borrowing the blueprint: Seahawks’ versatile WRs should be Patriots’ goal originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Each week this season, as the Patriots work their way through their first year under Jerod Mayo and Eliot Wolf, we’ll take a look at their latest opponent and see if there’s an aspect of their football operation worth imitating as the new regime in New England works to mold its team into a contender.
Last week we dug into the Bengals and their focus on making their highly-drafted quarterback comfortable with their coaching decisions. This week we’re looking at the Seahawks, whose versatile receiver room should be exactly what the Patriots pursue as they look to make their offense more dynamic for Drake Maye in the coming seasons.
You could say the pursuit is already underway.
The Patriots have a slot receiver in Pop Douglas who has dealt with injury early in his career, but he’s ideally suited to play in the slot with his quickness and penchant for creating yards after the catch.
They also drafted a do-it-all wideout in Ja’Lynn Polk in the second round back in the spring. His size, contested-catch ability and hard-nosed approach as a blocker makes him the kind of “Z” who could be a staple of their offense for years to come.
Wolf has also done his share of chasing after the third piece to the puzzle in the short period of time during which he’s held the title of Executive Vice President of Player Personnel. He coveted free-agent wideout Calvin Ridley before losing him to the Titans. Then Wolf went after Niners big-play threat Brandon Aiyuk before he re-signed with San Francisco.The reason for targeting those types of explosive options in the passing game is obvious. Particularly when the Patriots passing game has been as punchless as it has been recently. They tied for last in the NFL in 2023 with just 14 passes completed that traveled at least 20 yards in the air.
The Seahawks, meanwhile, while certainly not without their flaws offensively, seem to have figured out a nice mix when it comes to their personnel in their receiver room.
Need a big-bodied big-play threat? There’s DK Metcalf. Want a savvy veteran who can do a little bit of everything? There’s Tyler Lockett. Looking for an interior option with a good combination of size and change-of-direction skills? There’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Mayo knows what kind of challenge the diversity of their skill sets will present in Week 2.
“You try to, as you continue to build out the roster, you try to have defensive backs that can match whatever skill set they want to throw out there,” he said. “Now, sometimes that doesn’t happen. Sometimes you’ll have a 6-(foot)-5 receiver versus a 5-10 corner based on just the roster. Now, that 5-10 corner could be a Pro Bowl player, but there comes a point in time where this guy’s parents were taller than your parents, and it’s hard to really match…
“You’ve got to give some help over the top depending on what those matchups look like. So, if you look at a shifty guy, I mean, it’s a true double team. If you look at a vertical threat, it’s a true split-safety structure (to help the corner).”
The Patriots seem well-suited to hang with the talent the Seahawks will throw at their secondary. They have a diverse set of skills themselves. Christian Gonzalez is an explosive athlete with enough size to hang with Metcalf. Jonathan Jones is the defensive version of Lockett in some ways with his size, savvy and versatility. Marcus Jones will give up some size to Smith-Njigba, but he has the quickness to match the second-year slot’s next-level change-of-direction skills.
But not many cornerback rooms have what the Patriots have. And if they’re able to build a do-it-all receiver room of their own, they’ll be better off for it.
“Like last week (against the Bengals), you have teams where they want every receiver to be 6-4 so they don’t have a lot of shifty guys,” Jones said. “They’re going for contested catches. They’re not saying, ‘Hey, I want a guy wide open.’
“(The Seahawks), they have guys where, if I have tight coverage then they have a guy with a big catch radius. They have a shifty guy who’s smart who understands leverage and coverage. The third guy, it seems like he can do everything. He’s kind of that in-between guy with some speed. They have a good group of receivers.
“I think it’s that chess (match) with GMs of, how do they build their team? How do they build their roster? When you’re putting your corner group together, of course everyone wants 6-2, 6-3 corners. But every corner can’t be like a Gonzo, where you have that height and can move. You get some shifty receivers, and (bigger) corners can’t keep up with them. It presents challenges for a lot of teams. I think the way we’re built we have a little bit of everything so we’re able to match up with teams in that way.”
What makes the Week 2 matchup between the Patriots and Seahawks fascinating from a roster standpoint is that Wolf and Seattle general manager John Schneider hail from the same tree. Schneider worked for Ron Wolf in Green Bay, and then Eliot Wolf and Schneider were colleagues in Green Bay early in Wolf’s career.
“I used to babysit him,” Schneider said of Wolf at the NFL Scouting Combine earlier this year. “He was always around us. He was always in the draft room with us. He was always sitting in our offices, always taking in as much information as he could. He always had very, very strong opinions… He just took off. I’m happy everything has turned out for him (in New England).”
Wolf’s opinions were of course formed in part by his time studying under his father and being around evaluators like Schneider. And when it comes to constructing a receiver room, roster-builders from the Ron Wolf tree — like Schneider and Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst — seem to have a relatively consistent attitude: the more versatile the unit, the better.
Jonathan Jones is with them. He was asked this week if it would benefit all teams to chase after a well-rounded receiving corps containing players with distinctly different skills.
“If I was a GM,” Jones asked with a laugh? “I think it does. I think it gives you versatility. If somebody wants to take something away, you have this over here. I think that’s a more sound way of building your team.
“Obviously, if you can get a Tee Higgins and a Ja’Marr Chase, I don’t think anyone’s going to turn that down. But at the same time, you’ve got some redundancy. It does make it a little harder on defenses when you have a little bit of everything.”