Wolf of Soft Street? Patriots Whitewashing Belichick 'Hard-Ass' Culture

A drastic change from the iron fist rule of Bill Belichick the last quarter-century, New England Patriots' new leadership is vowing to be a kindler, gentler management style.

It took Bill Belichick 24 years to build his New England Patriots' culture. Looks like the new regime is seemingly attempting to tear it down in 24 hours.

Just a little more than a month after taking control of the Patriots in the wake of the team "parting ways" with the legendary head coach and de facto general manager, Jerod Mayo and Eliot Wolf are presenting the franchise in a very un-Belichickian way.

The new head coach has removed Bill's trademark press conference podium for a conventional table, because he aims to talk "with" the media instead of "down to" it. And Wolf, the team's new general manager, is in Indianapolis at this week's NFL Scouting Combine offering what for decades would have been considered pure blasphemy:

A culture change.

Said Wolf on Tuesday: “Certainly there’s more of an open - less of a hard-ass type - vibe in the building.”

Consider that only a thinly veiled shot at Belichick, whose - ahem - "hard-ass" style wasn't nearly as endearing while the team went 12-23 the last two years didn't win a playoff game his last five seasons. The Patriots are no longer run by dictatorship, but more so a consensus of voices that hope to speak the language of today's younger players.

The unprecedented substance of six Super Bowls is gone from Foxboro. So too is Belichick's unrefined style.

"I would say our pitch to free agents is this is a new program," Wolf said. "It’s easy to say the culture has changed, but there are no players here right now. Our job is to improve the team and get us back to respectability.

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"We're heading in the right direction. It's a new era. We have leadership with (head coach) Jerod Mayo that is going to be tremendous. He's an unbelievable leader and developer of people. I think as we move forward with the new offense and defense, it's going to be pretty special and exciting here."

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