HOUSTON — Building a football team as an NFL front office executive is similar to investment strategy. You have to have a sense of the market. You have to be able to identify what’s worth investing in and what’s over-hyped. You have to be on the same page philosophically with the person you’re developing a strategy for. You have to recognize and appreciate value. So, it’s not surprising that Patriots director of player personnel Nick Caserio has experience in both fields.
Long before he was the eminence grise of Patriot Place, Caserio was a junior financial adviser at Merrill Lynch working out of a satellite office in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. When he graduated from John Carroll University in 1999, he went from record-setting quarterback to financial services pitchman for eight months. He worked in a cookie-cutter, light-brown office building that housed mostly doctors’ offices from a nearby hospital.
Caserio handled a fee-based product for clients that selected a variety of mutual funds. The man who hired him, Jeff Rotsky, recalls Caserio being the first one in and working the phones tirelessly as if he was working the Patriots war room during the NFL Draft.
“He would have been a star in our business,” said Rotsky, a senior vice president at Morgan Stanley and a successful high school football coach in Northeast Ohio. “He was a hard-working guy. Nick could be a restaurant owner, he could be a magician, he could own a business. As the process was going on you just knew his heart was in football.”
Caserio followed his heart and it led him to Foxborough, where he has become an integral and inscrutable part of the Patriot machine since joining the team as a personnel assistant in June 2001, hired by Bill Belichick on the recommendation of one of Caserio’s college receivers, Josh McDaniels. The voice McDaniels hears in his ears from the coaches’ booth in Super Bowl LI on Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons will be Caserio’s. The voice that Belichick listens to most on personnel matters is Caserio’s.
The 41-year-old Caserio is the perfect Patriot. He is intelligent, diligent, versatile and nearly invisible publicly. He is a football factotum for Belichick — from running player personnel, which he has done since 2008, to serving as a de facto offensive coach on game days in the coaches’ booth to using his college quarterback arm in practice drills. He is the Patriots’ somewhat secret weapon, and he likes it that way.
The outward impression might be that Belichick is singularly responsible for the creation of the seventh Super Bowl team of the Belichick-Tom Brady era. But those who are inside pro football and have worked inside Gillette Stadium know how pivotal Caserio is to the Patriots’ success and how astute a football mind he is.
“He is a highly, highly thought of personnel man in the National Football League,” said Tennessee Titans general manager and former Patriots director of college scouting Jon Robinson. “New England is a special place. It’s the Patriot Way, and no one part is greater than the whole. No one is bigger than the team, Nick doesn’t do his job for singular accolades, none of us did. We did it for what’s best for the Patriots. He embodies that motto to the nth degree.”
Caserio is a football and fitness junkie with a legendary work ethic, an uncommon intellect, and a deep aversion to the spotlight. His college coach, Tony DeCarlo, said he was so obsessed with film work that the coaches had to kick him out of the office sometimes. Financiers and football coaches agree he is one of the smartest people they’ve ever met — he was slated to attend Carnegie Mellon University before his high school coach and football father figure, Joe Perella, became offensive coordinator at John Carroll.
Caserio’s peers and co-workers marvel at his focus. His friends laud him for his loyalty, humility, and commitment to family. They say the perception of him as a stolid football automaton is wrong. But they strain for specific examples of his humor or mirth.
“He is so utterly focused,” said John Priestap, Caserio’s best friend and former college teammate. “He is also as loyal and trustworthy as anyone I’ve ever encountered in my life. This is a guy I firmly believe would do anything for you if he knows you, and you’re in his circle. But his circle is tough to break. He is as passionate about the Patriots as his family. I read that he is just singularly focused, but his outlets are his family and his faith.”
His plan? Football
Caserio and Priestap have an everlasting quarterback-wide receiver bond that makes Tom Brady and Julian Edelman look like strangers. Caserio is the godfather of Priestap’s eldest son, Cade (whose middle name is Nicholas), and Priestap is godfather to Caserio’s youngest daughter, Chatham.
As Priestap, who now runs his own financial planning firm, recalled, they had recently become licensed as financial advisers and were starting to make some money working together at that small Merrill Lynch office when Caserio broke the news to Priestap — he needed to find a new roommate.
“He said, ‘I know I’m not going to make any money, but I’ve got to coach football. I’ve got to be in football,’ ” Priestap remembered.
Caserio went on a football website called footballscoop.com and applied for coaching jobs. He got a call for a graduate assistant job at Division 2 Saginaw Valley State.
“When I interviewed Nick he was one of the smartest people I’ve ever been around,” said Jim Kiernan, who was the offensive coordinator at Saginaw Valley State when Caserio was a grad assistant for two seasons. “Things made sense to him that for a guy right out of college usually don’t. His work ethic is unmatched.”
At Saginaw, Caserio created film cut-ups, coached the running backs, and had his own recruiting territory, going into the living rooms of prospective recruits and selling them on the program.
“He was like a 10-year veteran coach,” said former Saginaw Valley State head coach Randy Awrey, now at Concordia University Chicago.
Saginaw made the playoffs for the first time in Caserio’s final season on the staff. Its quarterback was Matt LaFleur, the Atlanta Falcons quarterbacks coach.
In 2001, Caserio left to become a graduate assistant at Central Michigan. He never made it to preseason camp. McDaniels had recommended his close friend to Belichick for a personnel assistant job.
Preparation ‘was almost scary’
McDaniels had seen first-hand how Caserio would outwork everyone to seize an opportunity.
The two began as quarterback competitors and became kindred football souls and close friends. In 1995, McDaniels was a true freshman. Caserio was a redshirt freshman. Neither was the starting quarterback. That honor fell to fifth-year senior Jeff Behrman.
But Behrman broke his leg in the season opener at Ohio Wesleyan. Caserio went in and never relinquished the job, eventually forcing McDaniels to move to wide receiver. Caserio left John Carroll as the school’s all-time leader in career passing yards, total offense, touchdown passes, career completions, and completion percentage. He guided John Carroll to a 33-7-2 mark, including an NCAA Division 3 playoff berth in 1997.
“There really wasn’t much of a quarterback competition. I’m going to set this straight,” said McDaniels. “Nick went in and played well for the rest of the season. The rest was history. He was awesome. It was a privilege to play with him, and play receiver.”
Caserio was a mini-Brady at John Carroll, a cerebral quarterback who was a coach on the field and a demanding leader. The Lyndhurst, Ohio, native won with his beautiful mind as much as his arm.
“His preparation for a kid that age was almost scary,” said Case Western Reserve head coach Greg Debeljak, who was the wide receivers coach at John Carroll at the time.
Being a personnel assistant or a quality control coach is not glamorous work. It’s grunt work. The hours are long. The pay is low. The gratitude is nonexistent. But Caserio loved it. He would call his friends and tell them how much he loved every second of it.
“I remember talking to him about sleeping there or leaving at 2 a.m. and coming back at 5 or 6,” said Rotsky.
Caserio enjoyed a meteoric rise in Foxborough. A coaching assistant in 2002, he was director of pro personnel by 2004. He was the wide receivers coach on the almost-perfect 2007 team. He returned to the personnel side in 2008 as director of player personnel.
Caserio essentially replaced Scott Pioli, who left for Kansas City in 2009 and is now the assistant GM for the Falcons, as Belichick’s chief player-procurement partner. Caserio has been the personnel chief for the Patriots’ record run of six straight AFC title game appearances and for three Super Bowl appearances.
Just as Belichick has used Troy Brown, Mike Vrabel, and Edelman on both sides of the ball, he employs Caserio on both the coaching side and the personnel side.
Caserio attends coaching meetings. He knows the Patriots’ offensive and defensive game plans. On Sunday, he’ll be in the coaches’ box at NRG Stadium, communicating and strategizing with McDaniels. Caserio relays to McDaniels the down and distance, the yard line, and what personnel the defense puts on the field. He also aids McDaniels with in-game adjustments between series.
“His depth and understanding of all of that stuff is really unbelievable,” said McDaniels. “Every game that I’ve ever called here he has been that person for me. I’m excited to be able to do it on Super Bowl Sunday with him again.”
That coach’s perspective gives him a unique understanding of what the Patriots’ parameters are for a player and what the coaches are looking for.
Matching Belichick
Caserio has had ample opportunities to run his own shop. He interviewed with the Miami Dolphins for their GM opening in 2014. He declined to interview for the 49ers GM job this year.
However, the Patriots have been at the center of his adult life. He met his wife, Kathleen, while she was working in marketing for the Kraft Sports Group. They have two daughters.
Caserio enjoys a blissful professional union with Belichick, who delegates to him and values his counsel. Robinson said Caserio is not afraid to differ in opinion on a player evaluation.
“I speak with a lot of people in the organization, and we make a lot of decisions collectively with input from the coaching staff and, of course, from Nick and the scouting department,” said Belichick. “Nick and I work very closely on that. Nick gives me a good balance there, too, because, again, he can step back and look at it from a football building perspective.
“Sometimes I get caught up a little bit more in the game-to-game, week-to-week in the season that we’re involved in. But Nick does a great job in terms of draft choices, drafting philosophy, and looking ahead to where our roster will be a year or two from now.”
If there is anyone at Gillette Stadium who matches Belichick’s dedication and tunnel vision it’s Caserio. Even the jokes his friends have for Caserio have to do with how hard he works out. Robinson said Caserio could narrate the P90X workout video. Rotsky needles him about his muscular calves.
His risible muscles don’t get as much of a workout.
“Nick was just so serious and so studious. What you see is exactly what he was,” said Debeljak. “He was going to be successful at whatever he was going to do. I really thought he would be a millionaire business guy. He turned into a millionaire football guy. You knew he was destined for success, it was just a matter of what direction.”
Caserio’s decision to choose football over finance has paid dividends for the Patriots.
Patriots organization chart
The Patriots don’t share how decisions are made but everything can be traced to one person, Bill Belichick, who sits at the top of the chart as supreme ruler, telling everyone to do their job.
Ernie Adams: The man of mystery contributes in unknown ways
Josh McDaniels: Aggressive, unpredictable; defenses are wary of him
Matt Patricia: Looks can be deceiving; Offenses know not to mess with him.
Jack Easterby: Reports directly to Belichick
Nick Caserio: Reliable for many jobs; he coached and scouted (both the NFL and colleges); he procures talent
Christopher L. Gasper can be reached at cgasper@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @cgasper.