Patriots promote college scouting director Matt Groh to top front-office position

The Patriots announced Matt Groh has been promoted to director of player personnel Tuesday, the top position in the team’s front office.

Groh replaces Dave Ziegler, who served as the Pats’ de facto general manager for one year before leaving to become the Raiders’ GM. Groh last worked as the team’s college scouting director, his first season in that role. Prior to that promotion, he spent two years as a national scout and six as an area scout.

Groh originally joined the Patriots as a scouting assistant in 2011. He played football at Princeton and graduated in 2003, before later earning a law degree from the University of Virginia in 2008. He is the son of former Pats assistant Al Groh, who coached with Bill Belichick throughout the 1990s and later became the head coach at Virginia.

The younger Groh was viewed one of the top candidates to replace Ziegler, along with senior consultant Eliot Wolf. Together, the three of them helped remake the Patriots’ scouting processes last offseason. Those tweaks yielded immediate results: a home-run draft class and the largest free-agent spending spree in NFL history.

Wolf recently finished his second season in New England after spending a decade and a half with the Packers and two years in Cleveland. He also interviewed for two GM jobs this offseason, potentially a factor in Belichick’s decision to promote Groh. The Patriots have now lost their top personnel chief for two straight offseasons after 13 years of stability under one-time director of player personnel Nick Caserio.

Last December, Belichick discussed his decision-making process when filling leadership positions in the front office.

“There’s all always a little bit of a, ‘who’s the next person?’ How do you help them develop and gain responsibility and become part of the process?” Belichick said. “Maybe they may not be a decision-maker in the process, but at least become part of the process and understanding how it goes and what are their contributions and would they be ready to move up and so forth.

“Then there’s always a possibility of bringing somebody in externally if you can find the right fit there. Again, depending on what you’re looking for and what the other person’s qualifications and experience was. … In the end, you try to have a little bit of foresight but really each situation is its own unique circumstances and variables and you try to do the best you can, not only with that person, but the staff that goes with them.”

SBLVI most-watched in 5 years

According to the NFL, Super Bowl LVI was the most-watched television show in five years, averaging an audience of 112.3 million viewers Sunday night and reaching more than 167 million people worldwide.

The Rams-Bengals showdown trails only Super Bowl LI, played between the Patriots and Falcons, for highest viewership of recent Super Bowls. Per the league, viewers tuned in to NBC, Telemundo, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, NFL Digital platforms and Yahoo Sports mobile properties to watch the game. It was the most-streamed Super Bowl ever, and viewership on NBC alone peaked at 99.2 million viewers, up 4% from last year’s Chiefs-Buccaneers tile bout.

Pats doc coming to AppleTV+

A 10-part docuseries on the Patriots dynasty is coming to Apple TV+ and will include behind-the-scenes footage from the 2021 season.

Titled “The Dynasty,” the docuseries is based on the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestselling book by author Jeff Benedict. The release date is unknown.

From Apple’s release: “The filmmakers have also been given access to the organization during the 2021 season and are conducting hundreds of interviews with past and present Patriots players, coaches and executives, along with league officials and the arch rivals of the most dominant sports dynasty of the 21st century.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/aT543f1