The New England Patriots have circled through multiple wide receiver coaches over the last few seasons. The latest to join the group is Todd Downing, who is reportedly joining the team to fill the position held by Tyler Hughes and his assistant Tiquan Underwood in 2024.
Downing is a new arrival in New England, but he brings a common background with head coach Mike Vrabel: both coached alongside one another with the Tennessee Titans from 2019 to 2022. Downing served as Vrabel's tight ends coach and offensive coordinator for two seasons each, before departing the team in 2023 to join the New York Jets.
Two years later, he is reunited with his old head coach. Let's assess what the hire means for the Patriots.
The Patriots entered the week with multiple coaching additions already known. Even though none with the exception of the hirings of Josh McDaniels and Terrell Williams as offensive and defensive coordinators, respectively, have been confirmed by the team, those moves still gave us a relatively good idea about what Mike Vrabel's staff will look like.
The lone outlier, at least until Monday, was the wide receiver coaching job. Following the departures of Tyler Hughes and Tiquan Underwood -- the latter having since joined the Dallas Cowboys -- the team had neither addressed it nor been linked to any candidates.
With Downing hired, that final big vacancy has now been filled. Although some responsibilities remain unclear and other lower-level moves might still happen, the Patriots, at least on paper, have a full staff heading into the 2025 season.
Downing started coaching career at 19, serving as an assistant at his former high school in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. He was eventually hired by the Vikings as an intern and an analyst, and in 2005 joined their staff in a quality control role. In the 20 years since, he has spent time with seven different organizations as a position coach or coordinator.
Most recently, Downing served as passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the Jets. His tenure with the team did not go particularly well -- the Jets fell far short of expectations during the much-hyped Aaron Rodgers era -- but he still comes to New England as a seasoned coach who has been around multiple coaching philosophies and dozens of quality players all over the NFL.
Even though Downing offers an extensive résumé, it is missing one item: he joins the Patriots as their receivers coach without ever having specifically worked with the position. That does not necessarily have to be a red flag, though.
The 44-year-old, after all, has spent a majority of his coaching life working on the offensive side of the ball. You don't serve as a tight ends or quality control coach without having and gaining an understanding of techniques and how to teach them; you don't serve as an offensive or passing game coordinator without knowing concepts and how to implement them within your area of responsibility.
That said, the move back to coaching a skill position for the first time since 2020 will be a transition for Downing. That he is doing so under a coordinator he is unfamiliar with only adds to the challenge.
The Patriots are also setting themselves and Downing up for scrutiny. The wide receiver group showing signs of struggle in 2025 -- something that has essentially happened every year since 2021 -- might inevitably lead to fingers getting pointed at him and his lack of experience as WR coach. "This wouldn't have happened with Wes Welker!" takes hitting the Boston area airwaves this fall seems like a foregone conclusion, fairly or not.
The Patriots have either hired, retained, or set their sights on hiring 18 assistants since introducing Mike Vrabel as their next head coach. 10 of those have either coached alongside or under Vrabel in the past, including Todd Downing.
Obviously, a coach opting to surround himself with familiar people is nothing new. It happened under Bill Belichick, it happened under Jerod Mayo, and it is happening across the NFL and beyond.
Familiarity likely has given Downing and other new Patriots assistants a leg-up over their competition, but it also is something Vrabel clearly puts a high value on. Given that he is entering his first year coaching the Patriots, that is not entirely surprising -- and why he still deserves the benefit of the doubt, at least for the moment.