After parting ways with longtime head coach and general manager Bill Belichick, team owners Robert and Jonathan Kraft leaned on one of their trusted executives to ease the transition.
Robyn Glaser, a senior executive with The Kraft Group since 2007, was promoted to executive vice president of football business and senior advisor to the new head coach Jerod Mayo. Her previous title was senior vice president of business affairs and chief administrative and compliance officer.
While Eliot Wolf served as the Patriots' de facto GM, Glaser's promotion prompted questions about her and the Krafts' involvement in football operations. During Sunday's Patriots Pregame Live, Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated shed light on how Glaser's role temporarily changed after Belichick's departure.
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"Certainly, she's had more influence over the last six or seven months," Breer said. "My understanding is her role under Bill Belichick was always in football operations. She was always doing things that are sort of away from the business of scouting, developing, coaching players. More stuff about budgets and contracts and that sort of stuff. So she's always been involved on that end since she got with the team in 2007.
"She built relationships with players who were working with her foundations. One of the players that she built a relationship with over the years was Jerod Mayo. So as Jerod built his staff as Eliot Wolf's role changed, she was a support to those people. She was in some of the interviews, she was involved more so I'd say in February and March and April and May than she had been in the past, but that was sort of a natural thing to help support the people who were new in charge and learning as they got comfortable in their roles.
"I think as the summer came, she sort of settled back into the role she's always played for the team. And that's why I said on the radio the other day she's sort of taken a little bit of a step back. That's where that step back has come, as Eliot and Jerod have become more comfortable in their roles as head coach and the de facto general manager. She's been able to go back to what she's been doing for the last 17 years."
The Patriots waited until mid-May -- after the bulk of free agency and the 2024 NFL Draft -- to name Wolf their executive vice president of player personnel. Wolf has control over "the overall direction of the personnel department, the management of the salary cap, and the 53-man roster," per the team.
Mayo earned his first head-coaching victory in last week's regular-season opener vs. the Cincinnati Bengals.
Hear everything Breer had to say about Glaser's role with the Patriots in the video player above.