FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Quick-hit thoughts and notes around the New England Patriots and NFL:
1. Breakthrough hire: When longtime Princeton football coach Bob Surace received a call from Patriots director of player personnel Matt Groh about a week before the 2023 draft, he figured it was a last-minute check-in on receiver Andrei Iosivas (sixth round, Cincinnati Bengals).
To his surprise, that wasn’t Groh’s primary intention.
Instead, Groh was seeking information on one of Surace’s ace behind-the-scenes staff members: director of football operations Maya Ana Callender, who had emerged as a leading candidate for an entry-level scouting assistant job in New England.
Over the next 45 minutes, Surace raved to Groh about her “phenomenal” performance, which contributed to a groundbreaking hire a few weeks later — Callender, a 2016 graduate of Utica College, is believed to be the first full-time female scout in the Patriots’ 64-year history.
Surace points to Callender’s 2021 training-camp fellowship with the Philadelphia Eagles, which was part of a wider NFL initiative aimed at providing more exposure and opportunity for women, as a key turning point.
“Her whole…
