The Patriots’ coaching staff continues to grow with new and familiar names
The New England Patriots’ coaching staff continues to grow, with multiple positional coaching hires reported Monday morning.
The New England Patriots and head coach Mike Vrabel continue to build out the new coaching staff. On Monday morning, multiple hires were reported, including a few notable names.
Starting things off is the reported hire of veteran NFL coach Doug Marrone. Marrone has over two decades of experience as an offensive line coach at the college and NFL levels, as well as stints as a head coach for the Buffalo Bills, Jacksonville Jaguars, and at Syracuse. Most recently Marrone was the offensive line coach from the Saints from 2022-2023.
Marrone isn’t the only coaching with a background working with offensive linemen that was reported to be joining the staff on Monday. According to ESPN’s Mike Reiss, the Patriots are also hiring Jason Houghtaling. Houghtaling was an offensive line coach under Vrabel for three years in Tennessee (two years as an assistant, one as the top offensive line coach). He was with the Chicago Bears as an offensive line coach last year.
Meanwhile, the Patriots are also bringing in a coach they also interviewed earlier in the process. According to multiple reports, the team is hiring Thomas Brown as their tight ends coach. He’ll also be the pass game coordinator, which has become a popular role league-wide but is a new title for the Patriots.

Brown was a longtime running backs coach at the college level before joining the Rams in the same role in 2020. He was named an assistant head coach in 2021, then moved to coaching tight ends in 2022. The next year Brown was hired as the Panthers’ offensive coordinator.
Last year was an eventful one for Brown. After initially being hired as the Bears’ passing game coordinator (without any positional coaching role) he was promoted in-season to offensive coordinator after the firing of Shane Waldron, and then a few weeks later named interim head coach after the firing of Matt Eberflus.
Defensively, the Patriots made a few hires as well. One is Milton Patterson, according to multiple reports. Patterson comes from the college level, where he was most recently Florida A&M’s defensive coordinator, after joining the team as a linebackers coach in 2021.
In 2023, Patterson spent the summer with Vrabel and new Patriots defensive coordinator Terrell Williams when they were with the Titans as part of the Bill Walsh Diversity Fellowship. Patterson did the same with the Atlanta Falcons in 2018 and the Chicago Bears in 2022.
Monday also brought the confirmation of some member’s of last year’s coaching staff leaving. According to Mark Daniels of MassLive, linebackers coaches Dont’a Hightower and Drew Wilkins won’t be returning in 2025.