Eliot Wolf Explains How Patriots Utilize Analytics in Scouting

One member of the New England Patriots' front office has been key in the team's scouting process this year.

Mar 13, 2025; Foxborough, MA, USA; New England Patriots executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf discusses the teamís recent free agent additions with the media at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Eric Canha-Imagn Images | Eric Canha-Imagn Images

When the New England Patriots hired Max Mulitz in 2025 after four years with the Miami Dolphins, it went relatively unnoticed across the league.

Now one year later, and Mulitz is getting name-dropped in executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf's pre-draft press conference.

Mulitz has spent several seasons with the Dolphins after spending the 2015 season as a full-time intern with the Philadelphia Eagles. His official title with New England is "personnel analytics coordinator," and he's playing a key role in how the team preps for this year's NFL Draft.

"He's working in conjunction with the personnel department," Wolf told reporters on April 13. "He's been in all of our meetings, and he's been great. Every player has a profile. The thing I like, particularly, about Max is he's not so married to the data that he can't – we'll retort him and say, 'Well, what about this?' And he has enough common sense to be like, 'Well yeah, that makes sense as a reason that the model gives this projection. Let me adjust it a little bit.'"

How The Patriots Use Analytics To Draft:

To dumb it down, Mulitz helps analyze where potential players are slotted to go in the draft, from the first round to the seventh. Like most NFL teams, there's often disagreements in how the big board falls. It's Mulitz's job to find a common ground with the front office.

Feb 24, 2026; Indianapolis, IN, USA; New England Patriots general manager Eliot Wolf speaks at the NFL Scouting Combine at the Indiana Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

"It helps with outliers," Wolf continued. "If he's got a model that says the guy should be a fourth rounder and all of us have him in the seventh round, to me that is cause for us to go back and ask questions. Why is that the case? Do we need to sit down and watch more film on this guy? To me, that's the role. It's to help you get as much information as you can to make the right decisions."

Adding more faces to the analytics department has been a goal of head coach Mike Vrabel since taking the job last year. Prior to hiring Mulitz, the team also hired Ekene Olekanma as the director of coaching analytics. Olekanma has previously worked for the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers.

"We want to use technology to the best of our ability and what we can do to help us be more efficient, to help us make better decisions, informed decisions," Vrabel said at last year's mandatory minicamp. "I don’t think you can rely and base every decision off the numbers, but I also think that those are important to ask questions and then be able to follow up and come to a sound decision on everything that we do. Personnel, coaching decisions, player health and safety, strength and conditioning, every aspect of our program."

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