The 2025 season was Ashton Grant’s first as a full-time quarterbacks coach in the National Football League.
Grant oversaw the Patriots’ quarterback room as Drake Maye emerged as an MVP candidate, with Maye crediting Grant — who came from a similar offensive system in Cleveland to the one Maye ran as a rookie — for helping him transition into Josh McDaniels’ offense.
That work did not go unnoticed around the league. Earlier this offseason, the Las Vegas Raiders requested permission to interview Grant
for their vacant offensive coordinator position. Grant ultimately declined the opportunity and instead chose to remain in New England.
“I think a number of things [led to that decision],” Grant said Tuesday. “One is just the culture that we’ve created here. Working underneath Coach Vrabel and learning from Josh McDaniels, I think that’s an opportunity that I don’t take for granted. And there are two completely different personalities, so I get the best of both worlds on that.
“I feel like there’s a little bit of unfinished business with where things ended off. I wanted to come back and continue to help Drake [Maye] develop, and Tommy [DeVito], and Behren [Morton], and all the other players that are on this team.
“I think lastly, personally, I’m not in a rush to get there. I think I’m focused on developing staying power once I do get there as opposed to being the first to get there or being fast to get there. So I think I’ve just been really intentional throughout my entire career about trying to do things the right way. So all those three things went into it.”
Entering his second season with Maye, Grant believes the continuity can be a significant advantage for the young quarterback, who has played under four different offensive coordinators over the last four seasons dating back to college.
If Maye continues his ascent, interest in Grant around the league will only continue to grow. While Grant hopes to ascend himself up the coaching ladder down the line, his focus right now is where his feet are.
“One day, but I feel like that’s so far off from now,” Grant said. “I think my goal today is making sure we go out there and perform and execute, and my goal tomorrow is to make sure we kill it in the meeting room, and we learn something, and we’re 1% better tomorrow than we were today.
“I think all those things down the road, if we do a good job, will take care of themselves, so I don’t put too much stock into that. I just try to focus on executing my job at a high level.”
That approach carried into this past offseason, where head coach Mike Vrabel challenged his staff to come up with new ideas to build upon the core foundation of the offense. For Grant, that process has kept him plenty busy before the focus shifted to the practice field in recent weeks.
“We have things that we want to attack, and Coach McDaniels does a good job of setting us in the right direction on what we want to study, but it’s fun because it sends us down rabbit holes. I found myself watching Division II football games and trying to figure out what guys are doing to be creative, and what the next step is. And if anything fits us, is it worth bringing to the table?,” he explained.
“So it definitely gets your creative juices flowing. But it’s been a fun project this offseason, and hopefully you guys see some of those things come.”
