Alex Van Pelt is hired as the new offensive coordinator by the Patriots.
On Thursday, the New England Patriots said that Alex Van Pelt had been hired as their offensive coordinator. Ohio State’s running game was in the top ten in three of his four years as head coach.
Van Pelt, who was the offensive coordinator or quarterbacks coach for the Cleveland Browns for four years, is a key member of first-year boss Jerod Mayo’s staff and suggests that the team may be moving toward a more West Coast-based system.
Head coach Kevin Stefanski called the offensive plays for the Browns, not Van Pelt. However, the 53-year-old filled in for Stefanski when he got COVID-19 and couldn’t lead Cleveland’s win against the Pittsburgh Steelers during the 2020 playoffs.
Van Pelt has been in the NFL for 29 years and has been an assistant coach for 20 of those years. He was on the playing staff for the 2020 season in Cleveland, where they scored 408 points, which was the second most in the team’s history.
Van Pelt was a quarterback over the Buffalo Bills from 1994 to 2003. He has spent most of his coaching career assisting quarterbacks, most recently with the Cleveland Browns, the Buccaneers of Tampa Bay, and the Green Bay Packers.
Van Pelt worked with Eliot Wolf, who is now the Patriots’ director of scouting. Wolf is starting his fifth season in New England and is quickly becoming a major figure in the front office after Bill Belichick’s 24-year tenure.
According to sources, the 41-year-old Wolf was with Mayo when the Patriots talked to assistant coaches.
Wolf played for the Packers from 2004 to 2017 and crossed over with the Panthers for six seasons. He is the son of NFL Hall of Honor executive Ron Wolf.
Everyone who works for Jerod Mayo in New England is now set up. The Patriots hired Alex Van Pelt, who used to be the offensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns, to do the same job, the team said Thursday.
As expected, the Patriots also said that DeMarcus Covington had been promoted to the position of defensive coordinator and that Jeremy Springer had been hired as special teams coordinator.
Before Thursday, 11 people were linked to the job of offensive coordinator in New England, but Van Pelt was not a single one of them. Mark Daniels for Mass Live says that he interviewed the Patriots on Thursday and that the team quickly hired him.
This 53-year-old man is now in charge of fixing the Patriots’ offense, which needs it badly. He has worked with many quarterbacks before coming to New England.
In 2023, the Browns had a very up-and-down season at quarterback. Five different players, Deshaun Watson, PJ Walker, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, Jeff Driskel, as well as Joe Flacco, all started. The Browns also lost their star running back Nick Chubb in Week 2.
When Flacco took over as quarterback, the team hit its stride. They won four of their last five games to earn a spot in the playoffs.
Over that stretch, Cleveland scored more than 27 points per game, and for the season, they scored 23.3 points each game on average.
But after Cleveland lost to the Houston Texans within the Wild Card round of the playoffs, head coach Kevin Stefanski fired Van Pelt.
Van Pelt had been a quarterback and played in the NFL for nine years, starting with the Buffalo Bills and ending with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chiefs.
He played in 31 games for the Buffalo Bills and started 11 of them. That included eight games in 2001. He retired to be a player in 2003.
Van Pelt got his start as a coach after working as a radio announcer for the Bills for two years.
After one year of serving as the quarterbacks coach at the Frankfurt Galaxy within NFL Europe, Van Pelt came back to the Bills in 2006 as a quality control coach.
He became the quarterbacks coach for Buffalo in 2008 and the offensive coordinator for the team the next year.
Van Pelt has worked with Derek Carr in Cincinnati and Aaron Rodgers with Green Bay during his tenure in the NFL.
He’ll likely work with a new quarterback in his first season with the Patriots, who have the third overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.