FOXBOROUGH – With the Patriots in the beginning stage of a team rebuild, creating the right culture is an early goal. Alex Van Pelt plays a role in this by having players show that they care for each other on the field.
That’s why the Patriots offensive coordinator keeps his own stat – pickups.
When the offense is on the field, if the ball carrier falls and gets up on his own, Van Pelt is angry. After every tackle, the veteran coach wants his players to run to their teammates, extend a hand, and help that player off the ground.
This season, Van Pelt has tracked every ‘pickup’ by the Patriots. That includes tracking every player who runs to a fallen teammate, who picks that teammate up and who’s getting helped up. Every Wednesday, in an offensive meeting, he announces the ‘pickup award’ to one player. This week, the winner was Demontrey Jacobs, who helped a teammate off the ground 11 times in the Patriots win over Chicago.
“There’s nothing that frustrates me more than watching guys not pick each other up off the ground,” Van Pelt said. “We ask these guys to be great teammates – run to the football. When you run to the football, good things happen and while you’re there, let’s get our guys off the ground. We ask the ball carries, if you’re on the ground, stay down, somebody’s coming to get you. That’s the mentality that we have. We play for each other. We call it, ‘For our brothers,’ in the room.”
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Jacobs came to the Patriots late this offseason after being claimed at the end of training camp. He spent the 2023 season in Denver and was with the Broncos for the second offseason in a row. The 25-year-old said he’s never been a part of a team where coaches heavily emphasized extending a hand to a teammate.
He noted that Van Pelt gave him a shoutout in Wednesday’s offensive meeting and said ‘pick me ups’ have brought the offensive unit closer together.
“Pick-me-ups are helping out those ball carriers, Jacobs said. “They run the ball and hold the fate of everybody in the building in their hands. I just want to be there for those guys when they get knocked down – be there to try and pick them up. Just let them know, ‘I got you.’ You take pride in it because it’s what we’re asking for in the organization and it’s an honor to pick those guys up. It’s an honor to be noticed for that. Regardless, I just want to be a better teammate.”
Van Pelt noted that coaches have tracked every ‘pick up’ this season and keep track of the number of players who get picked up and how many players run to the ball after each play.
“I think we had 85 guys that ran to the football to get their guys off the ground. We had 58 different players that got picked up off the ground,” Van Pelt said. “I don’t know if you’ve seen that across the league. That’s something we take great pride in here in building this culture.”
