Head coach Mike Vrabel spent five seasons alongside Ryan Cowden with the Titans.
The front office of the New England Patriots will be subject to shift under the 16th head coach in franchise history.
And with Mike Vrabel now on hand, the expectation is that Ryan Cowden will be joining him in Foxborough as part of the personnel department, according to a report Sunday from Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson.
I’m hearing #Giants personnel advisor Ryan Cowden is expected to be added to the #Patriots personnel mix, but not with a GM title. I believe Eliot Wolf will retain personnel power. However Cowden’s addition to the front office is Vrabel’s preference. Dynamics will be interesting.
— Charles Robinson (@CharlesRobinson) January 12, 2025
Cowden, 45, overlapped with the former AP NFL Coach of the Year in Nashville. He served as the director of player personnel for the Tennessee Titans during the 2016 and 2017 seasons before being promoted to vice president of player personnel in 2018. With the firing of Jon Robinson late in 2022, his tenure in the AFC South concluded as the interim general manager prior to the full-time hiring of Ran Carthon.
From there, Cowden, who has interviewed from GM positions around the league in past cycles, spent two seasons with Joe Schoen’s New York Giants as the executive advisor to the general manager.
A 2000 graduate of Wofford College, where he played defensive back and earned a degree in finance, Cowden began his NFL career with the Carolina Panthers. Spending 16 years in Charlotte, the titles of scouting assistant, area scout, national scout and senior college scout were held. He ultimately climbed to assistant director of college scouting for the 2014 and 2015 campaigns.
Last week, Patriots owner Robert Kraft shared that executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf and senior personnel executive Alonzo Highsmith would assist in the organization’s coaching search. Now the process of building out the staff is underway as eyes turn toward the roster, the new league year and the 2025 NFL draft class.
“We’ll wait until we bring that coach in,” Kraft said of the decisions in the personnel department. “Obviously, he’s going to have big input on who the players are and who the coaches are. It’ll be his decision.”