Patriots announce Jerod Mayo's coordinators, including hiring of OC Alex Van Pelt from Browns
The New England Patriots announced Thursday that they hired Alex Van Pelt as the offensive coordinator on head coach Jerod Mayo's staff.
They made the announcement alongside confirmation that they hired DeMarcus Covington as defensive coordinator and Jeremy Springer to run special teams, confirming earlier reports.
Van Pelt joins the Patriots from the Cleveland Browns, with whom he spent the past four seasons as offensive coordinator under head coach Kevin Stefanski. Van Pelt, 53, previously spent 15 NFL seasons in various offensive assistant roles with the Cincinnati Bengals, Green Bay Packers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Buffalo Bills.
Van Pelt spent nine NFL seasons as a backup quarterback from 1995 to 2003, all of them with the Buffalo Bills. He has spent much of his coaching career working with and developing quarterbacks, a role that will be critical in New England moving forward. The Patriots benched third-year quarterback Mac Jones on multiple occasions in 2023 and are in position to select a quarterback with the third pick in April's NFL Draft if they decide to move on from Jones.
Van Pelt will take on the critical offensive role under Mayo, who's entering his first season as an NFL head coach in the shadow of Bill Belichick, who parted with the Patriots in January, concluding a 24-season tenure as head coach that included six Super Bowl championships. Mayo spent his entire eight-season playing career as a linebacker with the Patriots and rejoined the team as its linebackers coach in 2019 under Belichick.
Van Pelt's offenses in Cleveland regularly ranked near the middle of the NFL pack amid tumultuous quarterback circumstances. Triggered by injuries to starter Deshaun Watson, the Browns started five different quarterbacks in 2023. They ranked 16th in yards per game (335.9) and 10th in points (23.3). They made the playoffs with an 11-6 record despite the rotating cast at quarterback.
