Why Wolf is rebuilding the Patriots on an audition basis

INDIANAPOLIS — Imagine you’ve been tasked with rejuvenating a five-star restaurant.

Rewriting the menu. Restocking the shelves. Restoring this eatery to its former glory, painstakingly, one stir, stove clean and meal plan at a time.

You have four months. And at the end of those four months, the owner will decide whether you can stay for opening night and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Put a chef ’s hat on, and you are now Eliot Wolf.

The Krafts have not guaranteed Wolf, their new de facto GM, his new power past the draft, according to sources. Wolf, in fact, is like most of the Patriots’ front-office members: near the end of his contract. The Patriots’ front office is replete with lame-duck executives and scouts, a rarity in the NFL, where most teams prevent their chief evaluators from ever reaching the end of their deals.

The Patriots’ willingness to let these contracts play out to the very end is a long-standing team practice and not necessarily a negative. It is also unclear whether this is a Belichickian custom the Krafts have maintained since his departure, or an ownership mandate. But, in the words of certain league sources who have pondered the Patriots’ offseason, inarguably the franchise’s most critical in decades …

What on Earth are they doing?

Fair question.

For now, the Krafts have placed the Patriots’ roster and future in Wolf’s hands. He has final say on personnel matters, as was reported here weeks ago and confirmed separately by Wolf and Jerod Mayo at the combine this week.

Wolf is also in the process of pivoting the entire front office to a Packers-style grading system. Two front-office members have told the Herald the new system is simpler, but hasn’t completely caught on yet. In time, that system will shape how the Patriots define quarterback prospects Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye, the odds-on favorites to be their selection with the No. 3 overall pick.

But what if the Patriots don’t land a quarterback the Krafts like? Or the front office whiffs on a top wide receiver in free agency, because the Bucs and Colts retained Mike Evans and Michael Pittman, respectively, as is expected around the league. Or the Pats suffer from any other perfectly plausible offseason outcome that might leave a talent-starved roster still hungry?

Will Wolf lose his job? Will the Krafts retreat into their old media guides and pull out a familiar face to replace him as the GM? Would the Patriots then revert back to their old scouting system after months of establishing their version of The Packer Way?

One source close to Wolf senses he has complete confidence he will keep his job. That confidence is unique to him in a front office filled with evaluators who simultaneously are enjoying Wolf’s laidback culture and confronting varying degrees of uncertainty because of their boss’s lame-duck status.

It might be fair to wonder why fans, who couldn’t pick Wolf out of a lineup before this week, should care about the job security of his underlings. Here’s the rub: anyone whose interests or attention or effort becomes divided between self-preservation and operating in the best interest of the team cannot devote themselves to the cause at all times.

And these are the men — from Wolf to director of player personnel Matt Groh, director of college scouting director Camren Williams, director of pro scouting Steve Cargile, senior personnel advisor Patrick Stewart and new senior personnel executive Alonzo Highsmith, among more than a dozen scouts — charged with lighting the Patriots’ way out of the wilderness. Anything less than their complete and undivided effort and attention could lead to a lesser product on the field.

Should they not be empowered? Allowed to bind their futures to the team’s? Trusted to do their jobs beyond this offseason, instead of wondering where their paychecks will come from after the draft?

Or, after shopping for the groceries with $78 million in cap space and loads of draft capital, shouldn’t they be allowed to enjoy the meal?