Despite being pursued by the Texans for Houston's open GM job this offseason – a role he reportedly was or is interested in – Nick Caserio is back in New England this summer in his role as the most unique director of player personnel in the NFL.
If you recall, Houston requested to interview Caserio for its GM job shortly after firing Brian Gaine, which came a day after the Patriots Super Bowl LIII ring ceremony, attended by Jack Easterby, who jumped from New England to the Texans this offseason. The Patriots subsequently filed tampering charges. The entire fiasco then faded away when Houston ended its pursuit and New England retracted the tampering chargers after the teams' owners hashed it out over a phone conversation which revolved around language in Caserio's current contract.
"Yeah, I think that's all water under the bridge," Belichick said prior to the Patriots first training camp practice of the summer Thursday morning at Gillette Stadium.
Belichick then responded in a general fashion when asked if he was happy to have Caserio back and if the executive's role would be similar to what we've seen in past training camp, which has included significant contributions on the practice field.
Belichick finally got a bit more specific when asked if Caserio, who was New England's wide receiver's coach in 2007, would help first-year wide receivers coach Joe Judge, who's also the Patriots special teams coach.
"Nick helps in a lot of ways," Belichick said. "He has a lot of experience. I'm sure he does much more than any other personnel person in the league does with his added coaching responsibilities and interaction with the coaching staff. He's a great asset in a number of areas."
After that, when questions turned to Caserio's contract, title and whether he has GM-like responsibilities that would include control of the New England roster, Belichick made it clear he would not be offering up any more insight to the situation regarding his top executive.
"I've never talked about contracts. I'm not going to start talking about them now. I don't know why you would bring it up," Belichick said.
For clarification?
"There's no clarification. I'm not talking about contracts. Period. Players, coaches or anybody else's. Never have. Don't plan to," Belichick said.
"Look whatever the rules are, they are. I didn't write them. Whatever they are, they are. Titles aren't the most important thing around here, winning is."
Whatever his title, role or job responsibilities, the fact is Caserio is back in New England as part of Belichick's staff as the team kicks off another training camp as the defending Super Bowl champions.
