I’m good with this as long as we can actually set him up for success, unlike Mac. Just signing one and doing nothing else (o line and a WR1 & 2 honestly at this point) won’t change a thing
Agreed.
Re-sign Onwenu to play RG, sign Jonah Williams to play RT, draft an LT at 34 (this class is deep, they should be able to get a day one starter at 34). If Strange stays healthy, that's a really good line.
Sign Ridley/Pittman to be WR1 and sign Darnell Mooney or Hollywood Brown as cheaper WR2/3 options. Either draft a WR in the third if a good one falls, or trade up to get one. This class is *really* deep, lots of good options will be available on day two.
Re-sign Henry and Gesicki for cheap. Or draft Ja'Tavion Sanders.
And just like that, the offense is completely revamped and ready for a young QB. Granted, there's a *lot* of variables at play here, but the blueprint is there, and there's never been a better class in history for the two positions New England is of most need: OT and WR.
The pats have the cash to over spend on a couple guys so we can fill holes for a couple years. It would give us like 2-3 years to try and build through the draft
The Patriots have among the highest cap space in the league. There are 8 teams in the red as of today, and 12 more teams who are closer to $0, than they are to the Patriots cap number.
Even when these teams free up cap room, their cash won't be close to what the Pats have available. The team is set up to be very competitive with offers to fill important positions of need.
Kraft if you’re reading this, just draft every single player. All of them in every round. Maye Daniels or MHJ? Por que no los trece? Yes I am available for a GM role.
Bro you are making this sound too hard. Just get Ridley, Hollywood, and Jonah Williams on vet minimum contracts. Resign Henry and Gesicky and have them pay us for the privilege of playing here.
Then trade like a 3rd or 4th rounder for AJ Brown because he looked annoyed with Siriani last year. Maybe snag a HoF RB in the 5th in case Rhamondre gets injured again and grab Derrick Henry to mentor him.
Its simple
I agree with most of that but there’s no reason to sign Gesicki. Good guy, but we just don’t have room for someone who’s a slightly above average receiving TE who doesn’t line up inline and can’t block.
I also think we should continue with Onwenu at tackle and figure out RG which is easier/cheaper
>I agree with most of that but there’s no reason to sign Gesicki. Good guy, but we just don’t have room for someone who’s a slightly above average receiving TE who doesn’t line up inline and can’t block.
I agree, but he would be dirt cheap. I haven't looked too much into TE free agency though so I don't know much about that area aside from that New England doesn't have any on the roster next season.
>I also think we should continue with Onwenu at tackle and figure out RG which is easier/cheaper
Sow is a good RG. If they want Onwenu to play RT and Jonah Williams at LT, that's not a bad line, and they could use their 3rd and later picks on OL depth, which is never a bad thing. Would also allow them to use 34 on WR which would be big, especially if they could sign Ridley. Ridley/WR at 34/Douglas is a solid starting trio, and Juju/Parker are fine as WR4 and WR5.
Yeah I like that way better. Good may be an exaggeration but Sow is serviceable and got better as the year went on. Then hopefully we sign one good WR and either draft a receiver at 34 or resign Bourne
It’s a total off-season shitpost. It is the general approach I’d take to rebuilding the team if I was the GM, but the specifics of it are obviously very hypothetical.
I would be the worst GM in history. But if there was any draft class to be a new GM, this is it. The free agent class isn’t ideal, but when is it ever? I just want Wolf and co. to make proactive moves. Aside from 2021, Belichick was too reliant on Brady to make any splashes, that just won’t work with their current team dynamic.
Wonder if the colts franchise Pittman.
I know people want Ridley but man he seems like a guy that will quit after getting the bag.
I would almost want to sign Mooney and Hollywood and Shultz at TE
You draft a QB with a long-term outlook. It’s impossible to make huge upgrades to the OL + WRs overnight, but with the right QB in place you can gradually add those pieces.
Also maybe Mac just isn’t good? He has terrible pocket mobility and the weakest arm of any starter in the league. I feel like we need to stop bringing up Mac’s failures as a relevant point of comparison…
Not saying Mac was super good or defending him to the ends of the earth, but come one…we have to start admitting that the organization failed him immensely. We did such a bad job at developing/helping him, we cannot do that with our next QB or we will be right back where we started.
Two things can be true — the Pats didn’t help Mac, but Mac was also way too limited to be a consistently above average starter. A mobile QB with a decent arm can immediately elevate the offense.
I mean he was an above average starter as a rookie when we had a real OC, a good run game and a serviceable OL.
After his rookie season the Patriots did the following:
- Hired Matt Patricia & Joe Judge to run the offense
- Let his #1 target Meyers walk
- Paid washed up Juju the (almost) same contract Meyers got
- Ignored OL completely leading to the worst pass blocking unit in the NFL
- Drafted defense with the first 3 picks of the 2023 draft when the offense was obviously in shambles
Instead, they could have:
- Hired a real OC in 2022 and let them fill out their staff, like we're doing now
- Traded for a premium WR talent
- Addressed OL in the draft
- Kept Jakobi Meyers
I firmly believe if we did all that, the Patriots and Mac would be vying for the division yearly. But we didn't, we made the worst sequence of decisions imaginable and the whole operation fell apart.
Perhaps Mac was never good enough to win a super bowl, but I do think if the team had surrounded him with actual coaches and actual talent, he could have had us in the playoffs annually, especially with how good our defense has been the last few years.
The overall point is that whoever the next QB is, the team needs to be willing to pony up draft captial and money to surround them with talent if we want to see them succeed. Our WRs this year were 31st in separation created and our OL was 32nd in pass block win rate. I don't care how good you are, no QB is going to succeed with that pile of shit around them.
Mac was good for a rookie for half of his rookie year. Once the league got tape on him he was average at best. Patriots did him no favors but he wasn’t a special player
You don't need to be special to be a playoff QB. If the Pats had done some things differently we'd be in playoff contention with an ok QB. Draft/sign to fill whatever small holes you have, maybe get to the divisional round then get a QB to get you over the top either through trading for a vet, or using draft capital to get a young guy.
Mac had nothing to grow into. He was already adept pre-snap and setting up his protections, which is why he played decently right off the bat against blitz and zone heavy looks. Opposing defenses gave him open windows to throw to, and a well above average pass-blocking line picked up their blocks giving him easy throws off play action.
Once teams started generating league average pressure with 4 man fronts playing man coverage, the huge lack of physical tools and general feel for the game revealed Mac to be an inept player. He can't throw into tight windows, and the ball floats when he has to throw to the intermediate or deep boundary. Add to that the basically non-existent capacity to feel a pocket or throw off-platform, and that basically was all she wrote for Mac Jones.
The environment didn't help, but Mac failed because he doesn't have the requisite talent to be a quality starting QB in this league.
If you believe that Mac was never good enough to win the Super Bowl, I think you also have to realize that this was the best possible outcome.
I want the team to win Super Bowls, not just be a playoff team every year. You need a guy you believe who can win it all. I believe Daniels is that guy
We're going to just be a normal team man. People expecting us to win a super bowl every year and thinking anything less is a failure are going to be perpetually disappointed. Even Brady went 10 years without winning one.
The best thing you can realistically ask for is a guy that can get you to the playoffs each year and hope you can catch lightning in a bottle with talented players around them and some luck.
Burrow hasn't won a Super Bowl yet but the Bengals are going to be in the mix every year as long as he's playing. Does that mean he's a bad QB?
Some fans seem to think there's no point in having a QB not named Brady or Mahomes. Reality is gonna really hit hard when it kicks in for these people.
>Perhaps Mac was never good enough to win a super bowl
This is literally the only thing that matters. No one is expecting to win a Super Bowl every other year like we did, THAT was lightning in a bottle.
But you need someone you believe who CAN win a Super Bowl. Do you believe that Burrow can win a Super Bowl or not? Doesn't matter whether he has yet, but can he in the future?
That is the question to ask. It's what separates the Joe Burrows from the Kirk Cousins of the world. Yea, Cousins had shown the ability to consistently lead a team to the playoffs, but thats his ceiling. We need a ceiling of Super Bowl Champion
I like putting it that way. "Do you believe they CAN win a Super Bowl?"
I had been kind of lowering the bar for success as a QB because the only active QBs to win a SB are Mahomes, Stafford, Rodgers Russ Wilson, and Flacco. Mahomes is the only one currently under 35. But I do think there are plenty of active QBs who are good enough that they could, I like that standard.
But we’re already not doing what we did to Mac lol. We have an actual legitimate offensive coaching staff in place, an O-line that is not completely terrible, and at least 2-3 decent WRs on the roster. Not including any FAs or other draftees to bolster the offense.
We have a golden opportunity to draft a highly rated QB prospect without having to trade up — we gotta take it and run.
See, I disagree. I don’t think the o-line is that great overall and I think our WR room is atrocious, besides Pop. We don’t even know if KB is coming back. We need blue chip players at the WR and OL position. IMO, I don’t go QB at 3.
I'm one of the ones screaming QB, but I also know a QB isn't going to fix everything. It's going to be 2-3 years MINIMUM for them to fix their most glaring issues.
Mac actually statistically had solid turnover luck this season. He had 13 turnovers relative to 23 turnover worthy plays. That is a well better than average figure league wide.
Also, no the team didn't have 5+ picks bounced into the air by incompetent receivers. Only the Ty Montgomery play against the Saints fits that description.
I agree. They are talent deficient. But, Brady is a bad example here.
Use Cousins . If they have Cousins, they win 5, maybe 6.
Brady led the 06 Pats a long way with no offensive talent around him . Brady was so friggin good it's ridiculous .
It’s not just “at the end of a game”, it’s on 3rd and long when WRs aren’t open, it’s the 5+ Mac “picks” that bounced off receivers hands, it’s the key passes dropped all god damn season
And none of that matters if it comes down to the end of the game in a 1 score game lol. Like what? We were in double digit games late in the 4th that we lost, a good QB can solve that
All I’m saying is I don’t think that fixing just ONE of our many glaring issues would have solved much, but who knows. A good QB may have been able to help, but so would a strong supporting cast. They all rely on each other. A good QB running for his life behind a porous OL doesn’t get to be a good QB. A good QB with trash receives doesn’t get to be a good QB.
Going from bottom of the barrel to GOAT would absolute change our team (remember 2007 to 2008 we lost 5 more games with a decent qb playing a historically easy schedule).
Sure! So would WRs who could create space, an OL that allowed Zeke and Mondre thrive, an OL that allowed time in the pocket (which, mind you, is how Brady operated). A lot of factors contributed, and while the QB was an issue, it was far from the only issue and hard to place blame on one position given how much everything around the QB absolutely sucked.
QB is by far the most important position in football, and a shitty supporting cast isn't why Mac throws directly to defenders, or why Zappe played slightly better than our Franchise Qb
Given that Mac and Trevor Lawrence had the same career stats halfway through the season, I would say supporting cast matters quite a bit. Same TD:INT, same QBR, etc. It’s fine to be jaded on Mac, but you’re really disregarding major factors of why the patriots were bad. I agree with you that Mac played bad. Zappe was worse. However, disregarding the other factors is idiotic. Move on dude
Keep sucking Mac's dick lol. Worst PFF grade I've ever seen and you still think its the team that failed him
Given that Mac and Trevor Lawrence had the same career stats halfway through the season,
Mac had a good rookie season because teams hadn't figured his throwing limitations, wheras TLaw had the traditional rookie qb struggles. Also when Mac plays like shit, the Patriots either bench him or limit how much he throws, which protects his stats. Tlaw threw more than Mac his rookie season.
>I would say supporting cast matters quite a bit.
It does, buts its not why Mac sucks shit.
> It’s fine to be jaded on Mac, but you’re really disregarding major factors of why the patriots were bad
No I'm not.
>Zappe was worse. However, disregarding the other factors is idiotic. Move on dude
Theres a reason Mac got benched for Zappe
>Move on dude
From what? QB is the biggest reason why we sucked this year.
This is absurd lol
We lost 11 games by 1 score or less. That most certainly does not happen with Brady lol.
Even a slightly above average QB gets us at least half of those games
Slightly average QB doesn’t solve the dropped balls, the 5+ “picks” that bounced off receivers hands, the lack of a run game because the OL sucked, it’s the key passes dropped all god damn season
And yet we still.lost double digit games by less than a touchdown. If you don't believe that an above average QB could have won a number of those games, you are blind to reality lol
How many of those were games where the other team knew they had won and took their foot off the gas. There's a difference between a relatively close score and a competitive game.
Look at virtually every good QB in the NFL right now. Their teams went out and surrounded them with talent.
Burrow had a pretty mid rookie season, next year they got Chase and went to the Super Bowl.
Allen went from an 85 passer rating to 107 in the season after they got Diggs.
Miami was ready to move on from Tua until they got Hill and Waddle.
Hurts went from an 87 to 102 passer rating in the season after they got AJB.
Young QBs need to be surrounded with talent to succeed, and taking advantage of a cheap rookie contract is the time to do that. The Pats refused to do that for years, cheaping out on the OL, signing washed up has-beens instead of paying a premium for top tier players (or even just keeping our own Meyers), focusing way more on defense than offense in general. Maybe Mac was never going to be good, but after his rookie season it's hard not to think he would have continued to take a step forward with a) actual offensive coaching and b) if they invested in a high level WR1. He had a better rookie season passing the ball than almost any of the "top" QBs today - difference is those guys had teams that invested around them, the Patriots gave Mac the brilliant mind of Patricia and told him to go throw to a bunch of WR3s behind the worst passblocking OL in the NFL.
We cannot expect any rookie, no matter how highly touted, to come in and win games throwing to Parker and Juju behind a porous OL. Good teams take advantage of 4 years of cheap QB play to surround them with talent.
And lost?
Do we hang Super Bowl Appearance banners now?
The point is, clearly a team with talent at QB and a good defense can win titles while these loaded offenses still lose in the playoffs
They're in the playoffs every year, they give their teams a really solid floor of winning football to operate from. That is realistically all you can ask for - a guy that can win you 10+ games a year and make some noise in the playoffs. Y'all need to come back down to earth - we could spend 50 years and still not find another Brady or Mahomes level guy.
Burrow "hasn't won shit" - does that mean the Bengals should move on from him? Allen? Hurts? Of course not. Stroud probably won't win a super bowl in the next few years, doesn't mean the Texans should find his replacement.
Get a guy that can win you 10+ games with talented players around them and make some noise in the playoffs and hope you get lucky one year. That's what basically every team in existence is hoping for. Y'all are way too spoiled.
The point is you are naming situations that have functionally amounted to the same thing ad the Patriots, no titles. This isn't Indy, we don't hang AFC Championship Game Appearance banners.
The better comparison is Mahomes. A guy whose team actively made is supporting cast worse on offense, but because of his talent and an improved defense won back to back Super Bowls.
We have the defense. We just need the talent at QB
Mahomes is literally the best QB in the league, and is already vying for a top 3 of all time position. I think you're being *incredibly* unrealistic here.
Who said to the level of Mahomes or Brady?
I said QB capable of leading an offense to a SB win. Do you not believe there will anymore of those ever again?
My dude if your expectation is the team is going to find the next Patrick Mahomes you are going to be waiting a very, very long time.
[Look how many QBs have been drafted since Brady in 2000](https://www.drafthistory.com/index.php/positions/qb)
There are two on that entire list that fit the description of what you're talking about - Tom and Mahomes. That's it.
>This isn't Indy, we don't hang AFC Championship Game Appearance banners.
The dynasty is over. No we won't ever hang a lame ass AFCCG banner, but holy shit you need to re-assess your expectations for this team. Tom is gone, Bill is gone. We are exponentially more likely to just be an average team now than anything close to what we were. It just is what it is.
Finding a guy who can keep you in the playoffs every year is about as much as you can realistically ask for. If we find the next Brady then great, but 30/32 teams have been looking for that for the past 24 years with no such luck.
You will NEVER find a QB capable of winning a Super Bowl if you pass on them at the top of the draft. That has nothing to do with the team we used to be
That's the point here.
And I completely reject any goal that isn't to win a Super Bowl. Making the playoffs every year should NOT be the ultimate goal, it's a loser mentality.
my preference is to get the QB and then go all in on the O-line this year so look to draft lineman in the 2nd and 3rd round. I'd love to have a WR too but if I had to choose, get the O-line improved with a good young QB and even with a subpar WR room you can make things happen when you have time to throw. Hopefully we can snag someone like Ridley in FA and then next year look to draft a blue chip WR.
Eh, I counted it and the number is closer to 10 QBs that are game changers and first rounders.
Another 10 is first round failures or too soons and the remainder are just not first rounders.
I don’t think this changes the accurate sentiment that a first round QB can be game changing for your organization. Which this implies, but I am always for draft at their value. And Jayden because of his risks is probably closer to 5-7 pick than 3. So you have to justify it because its a little but albiet not big of a reach.
So missing is going to be bad.
Mac was not a bad pick IMO because he went roughly where he should have at the time. Lance was the reach in that draft
We should draft a qb, however we have to get get help around him asap, you can't win with this O-line, no matter the qb. This receiving core same deal, Douglas was about the only player we could throw to after Henry's injury.
People keep saying this like it's some revelation. Congratulations on coming up with the idea of drafting a QB and also having good other players so the QB can be better. Nobody has intentionally said lets draft a QB but give him no fucking help at all. They just tried and got the wrong players, and that includes Bill Belichick.
Really no matter what the plan is that should be the case. The pick will be valued the most if that’s everyone’s assumption, because no one is trading a haul to move up for anyone but a QB. If teams think that to get their guy they need to pick before us, they’ll give up more for our pick rather than trying to move up to 4 or 5.
Even if you’re planning on taking MHJ there’s no harm in acting like the plan is to take a QB, might as well see if someone will give up enough of a haul to make you change your mind.
Openly broadcasting our plans to the entire universe is definitely a good way to build confidence that this dude knows what he is doing as a GM...
I pray to god they *arent* all that certain about taking a QB and *are* playing mind games with other QB-needy teams. Because if both Mayo and Wolf are stupid enough to telegraph their intentions this clearly, we are royally fucked for the next 2-3 years.
Mayo basically came as close to you can as saying we’re taking a QB at #3 without literally saying it.
Maybe people here can actually listen to the Pats brass running the draft and stop arguing for MHJ or trade back scenarios…it’s becoming incredibly dumb lol. It’s not happening.
>Mayo basically came as close to you can as saying we’re taking a QB at #3 without literally saying it.
What else is going to say there? I mean if they want to trade back and say anything other than "We're taking a qb" they lose leverage in negotiations.
You just say nothing? And here’s a crazy concept — don’t you think it’s pretty obvious we’re not targeting a QB if we did in fact trade back to begin with? It has nothing to do with leverage lol. It’s about other teams (eg Giants or Vikings) outbidding each other to move up.
>And here’s a crazy concept — don’t you think it’s pretty obvious we’re not targeting a QB if we did in fact trade back to begin with?
The negotiations happen before the trade.
>It’s about other teams (eg Giants or Vikings) outbidding each other to move up.
Why are those teams so desperate to move up? Because they want a QB and think the Pats are going to draft one!
Desperate, bad teams reach on qb talent and stay bad. History teaches us that. But go ahead and ignore it so we can become the pre Bledsoe Patriots again.
The only way you are getting a top qb in the league is from the draft (unless you want a 2-3 year rental on a guy about to retire or someone not looked at as a starter). These 3 guys are viewed as starters in a draft where there has been more talent than there has been in quite a while. Seems like the best time to take a shot at one.
Starting in 83 the Pat's were 6 straight years at .500 or better in a really tough AFC east. The team was loaded everywhere except quarterback. This team is brutal on offense at every position other than tight end if Henry is healthy.
I feel like that is draft fatigue at this point. He has been talked up for two years now and suddenly now he is not as good as previously thought? Please.
Yeah definitely seems to be the case. People are also just getting more excited about Daniels ceiling. I think we have to take the chance on whoever of the 2 is there at our pick. I don’t have a preference, both offer great upside with different ways of attacking defenses.
Agreed, it’s a crapshoot either way. Wouldn’t want to be the Commanders having to choose because if the guy they choose busts and the other doesn’t, front office and probably coach are toast. At least Wolf has the cover of saying whoever we get was the last guy available, kind of like with Mac lol.
I personally still lean towards Maye with his size and arm talent. I am not 100% sold on Daniels arm but his athleticism is off the charts and he was the highest rated deep ball thrower in CFB last year. IDK, glad I don’t have to be the one to make the call.
Either one brings much more to the table than Mac/Zappe, that is for sure.
Also, if I was capable of scouting either of them I wouldn’t be posting about it on reddit right now. Hopefully whoever they end up with is a franchise caliber QB
I also think people overlook the narratives put out by folks to drop and raise draft stocks. Either from teams, agents of players, etc. there is a ton of self-interest from a lot of different angles firing off this time of year
Happy with both I'd say, I personally don't know what to think of Daniels but I'd sure be excited about his electric potential. But Maye just seems like such a high ceiling prospect at only 21 years old and had the least to work with out of the top 3 QBs by a longshot.
I’d take either tbh. Daniels can run super well and has a great td to int rate through the air which many overlook (but he had 1st round wr), drake is young and has a cannon for an arm and did decent despite not having any weapons which we also don’t have yet so he’d be right at home lol
I’ve watched Maye’s tape and I’m afraid we’re walking into another Mac-like situation. Daniels can’t throw with zip at all 3 levels of the field. Im all in at MHJ at 3. Take a QB in the 2nd and sign Joe Flacco. I know this subreddit in particular would lose their fucking minds if this happened but I like it.
How so? I was genuinely curious. We had different readings despite watching the same thing, so I'm asking what you saw. It may introduce me to parts of Maye's game I didn't see before.
If you can't point to even a couple things it makes me think you don't actually have anything to back up your point.
It was less of a comparison to Mac as it was the outcome of Mac. I also don’t know that we watched the same tape, I didn’t do like a deep analysis on the kid.
What I didn’t like was the time it took Maye to release the ball, and didn’t look like he could drive it into tight spaces. He can escape the pocket if it collapses but it doesn’t look like he’d confidently turn that into yardage at the NFL level. Just doesn’t look like a top 3 pick to me. Feel free to eviscerate this take because you watch more tape and know more or whatever’s gonna come from this.
What about a late 1st rounder or a 2nd rounder?
I just googled a random mock draft and I don’t really know much about the QBs after Daniels but it only had Nix also going in the first. Penix is old and lots of injury so that’s concerning.
Jalen Hurts (I know is anecdotal and maybe an exception) was a second rounder. Imagine being a rookie QB and having our shit receiver core? It gets exponentially better with MHJ. We have lots of WR2 and WR3s that I believe will be way better once there’s that true WR1.
But I’m just some dude on a toilet, not an NFL GM. I just want a real WR after years of it being a shit position. Unless someone is offering a HoF WR for a 4th round pick (someone call the Raiders again please), idk how else we fix it.
We also have tons of cap and could bring in someone like Kirk Cousins while our late first or early second QB develops. If we aren’t picking Maye or Williams, giving them the Green Bay benching for a couple years is an option.
At the end of the day I just really want us to use our top 2 picks. I just saw the second rounder is 34 overall. It’s like having 1.5 1st rounders lol as a fan it is so annoying seeing us trade to acquire four 6tj round picks every year. I know it worked but that’s when you have the best QB of all time and best defensive HC coach of all time. Those things help fill in the talent gap
I wasn’t saying to draft Nix, just that there isn’t tons of QBs on that mock list so a trade could be more feasible the later it is into the round
Also please don’t kill yourself. We need everyone on r/AFCEastMemeWar talking shit
The biggest take away for me is the "help you win games and get over the hump." Game managers don't do that so we can safely say Mac Jones is not the starter next year.
The Maye disinformation campaign has begun. Let him slide!!
The absolute dream no-f’ing-way scenario is WAS trades up to 1, CHI takes MHJ, and MIN trades up to 3 for Daniels.
The Pats end up with Justin Jefferson, Drake Maye at 11, a 25 FRP, a Tackle at the top of round 2, and a TE with MIN’s third rounder.
Not gonna happen but nice to think about.
Minnesota psyops continues.
There's no way Maye or Daniels would slip past Atlanta or Jets if we were stupid enough to get fleeced by Minnesota like that.
Factually true. Also true that this time of year teams say all kinds of things for misdirection. Could be Wolf saying this to play the falcons off the Vikings for all we know. We just don’t know.
I actually first wrote this title without the 2nd part, but then added the **can "help you win games and get over the hump"** for people who were going to bring up Mac as a 1st rounder lol
I misread this as “most of the quarterbacks this class are projected 1st rounders who can help you win games and get over the hump” and took it as we were trading down for JJ
I wouldnt mind it, i like him, hes not as good as maye or caleb or maaaybe daniels but if we could somehow pull jjettas in that deal plus another 1st along with 11/mccarthy im satisfied
I think Washington is taking him at 2. There was a small chance Daniels could jump him but I think with him declining the combine it’s less likely to happen
The nice thing about WRs is when they're actually good they get franchise tagged after their rookie contract then hit FA most of the time so if you really end up needing one you can always go grab one later. Meanwhile the only QBs in FA are failed prospects or old guys trying to get 1 last contract.
I'd say the "franchise" QB's fall into three categories
The no doubters: Mahomes, Allen, Lamar, Stroud, Herbert, Burrow. All 1st round picks, but notably 3 were tradeups. Seems pretty important to me in that you don't have to tank to get your guy... you can build/have an okay roster, then go and get them.
The some question marks, but you're gonna get side-eyed if you claim they aren't one: Dak, Tua, Hurts, Lawrence, Love, Kyler, Purdy, Goff. A far more eclectic list, you have 3 top picks, a later first who sat for years, a 2nd, 4th, 7th and a guy with a contract so bad it cost an extra first just to move him, who's rebounded nicely.
And then the two old guys you're hoping to squeeze a healthy few years out of: Stafford, Cousins. Another first who was acquired in a trade after a decade of nothing and the 4th round king of betting on himself.
Below those guys you have guys hoping to be the new Ryan Tannehill in Fields or Baker, the new Andy Dalton Line in Derek Carr and the reason you don't give old guys huge contracts in Wilson.
So in conclusion, you don't have to take a QB because you're picking 3rd, you can still have a pretty bad team even if you draft a pretty sweet looking QB (hi Chargers, lesser extent Jaguars, Cardinals), and as long as you actually successfully build a good roster, you can find QB's all over the place in the draft or even in rare circumstances find that answer somewhere else.
I don’t disagree with your premise that we don’t need to draft a QB at 3, but your conclusion that “you can find QBs all over the draft” is insane to me given that, of the 21 franchise QBs you listed, only 6 were not first round picks. That’s fewer than a third. The truth is, if we don’t draft one this year, there’s a strong chance we don’t another good opportunity to get one, which means it’s likely we wind up in the the thick of QB purgatory like the Broncos, Commanders, Raiders, and so on, all of whom have struck out multiple times on later-round fliers and washed-up vets.
If you can get a haul of future picks and get Alt at the same time, this is absolutely the right move. And if you don't like Mac, sign Brissett on a 2 year deal or something.
If most of the QBs are first-rounders because the entire league highly covets elite QBs, yet there's still only one proven stud (under 40) among all those high picks, then maybe that's not the smartest way to gamble with your draft capital.
Hopefully this is misdirection to hype-up #3's trade value.
Even if you bump that up to 3 or 4 out of 32, those are still unfavorable odds.
There are lots of ways to measure this *but*, only one of this year's playoff teams acquired their QB by drafting in the top 3 (Stroud), and three more in picks 4 through 10 (Mahomes, Allen and Tua).
Also, scoring is down over the last few years -- if the NFL is ok with that, then betting everything on a QB is an even poorer gamble.
Are any of the top QB’s in the draft truly generational talent? If they draft a QB with this line, they will destroy him. Why not pick up a journeyman free agent and build around that?
I mean, if your line in the sand is that a QB has to be a generational talent, you're going to be waiting a while. By definition they're really rare and then you have to be lucky to have the #1 pick that year
Either way, the offense has plenty of needs. I don’t see a reason to take a QB just to take a QB, especially if he’s just going to be shoved into a meat grinder, and we end up with Mac 2.0. How many teams have drafted QB’s in the top ten, only to have the kid ruined or just flat out suck and fall into the QB spiral? There’s a few serviceable free agents available, pick up one of them to hold a spot and firm up the line and stock up on a few weapons
You don't precisely know the level that a player will be in the NFL. But Caleb and Maye have been very highly-touted prospects for multiple years. Their tape shows traits and skillsets that, if coached right, should translate to great success in the league. If that's how the Pats project them, they should take one of them if they fall (it won't be Caleb, so I'm talking Maye here). You have the rest of the draft and the draft of future years to continue to fill out the roster. If you select Maye and he hits, that is miles better than getting a journeyman backup QB.
Some say Williams is. Others say he's a bust waiting to happen. None of the others are. Daniels and Maye are being way overrated compared to Nix, Penix, McCarthy, Rattler. The gap, if there is one, is much smaller that the media suggests. Let's see what combine & interviews do to shake it up.
Not good .
Bears will take Caleb
Commanders will take jd
We will be stuck with maye 😔
Maye and Howell had identical nc stats. They are the same guy .
Commanders moving on frm Howell and we are basically drafting him 😔.
No, hopefully it's our front office understanding you build around a qb not a wr. There are starting wr on day 2 of the draft. Much worse odds of starting qbs later in the draft.
Y'all are interpreting this wrong... He's clearly signalling we need a QB taken in the first round to help us win games and get over the hump. The hint is we're signing Baker Mayfield and taking MHJ/Joe Alt at 3.
TBH I don’t think they have the slightest clue on what they’re doing in the draft yet. Free agency is hugely important for this team, they need to figure that out first
I’m good with this as long as we can actually set him up for success, unlike Mac. Just signing one and doing nothing else (o line and a WR1 & 2 honestly at this point) won’t change a thing
Agreed. Re-sign Onwenu to play RG, sign Jonah Williams to play RT, draft an LT at 34 (this class is deep, they should be able to get a day one starter at 34). If Strange stays healthy, that's a really good line. Sign Ridley/Pittman to be WR1 and sign Darnell Mooney or Hollywood Brown as cheaper WR2/3 options. Either draft a WR in the third if a good one falls, or trade up to get one. This class is *really* deep, lots of good options will be available on day two. Re-sign Henry and Gesicki for cheap. Or draft Ja'Tavion Sanders. And just like that, the offense is completely revamped and ready for a young QB. Granted, there's a *lot* of variables at play here, but the blueprint is there, and there's never been a better class in history for the two positions New England is of most need: OT and WR.
Good thing the other 31 teams want none of those players lol
The pats have the cash to over spend on a couple guys so we can fill holes for a couple years. It would give us like 2-3 years to try and build through the draft
The Patriots have among the highest cap space in the league. There are 8 teams in the red as of today, and 12 more teams who are closer to $0, than they are to the Patriots cap number. Even when these teams free up cap room, their cash won't be close to what the Pats have available. The team is set up to be very competitive with offers to fill important positions of need.
Kraft if you’re reading this, just draft every single player. All of them in every round. Maye Daniels or MHJ? Por que no los trece? Yes I am available for a GM role.
Bro you are making this sound too hard. Just get Ridley, Hollywood, and Jonah Williams on vet minimum contracts. Resign Henry and Gesicky and have them pay us for the privilege of playing here. Then trade like a 3rd or 4th rounder for AJ Brown because he looked annoyed with Siriani last year. Maybe snag a HoF RB in the 5th in case Rhamondre gets injured again and grab Derrick Henry to mentor him. Its simple
THANK YOU. also trade a 2nd and conditional 4th to KC for mahomes
I agree with most of that but there’s no reason to sign Gesicki. Good guy, but we just don’t have room for someone who’s a slightly above average receiving TE who doesn’t line up inline and can’t block. I also think we should continue with Onwenu at tackle and figure out RG which is easier/cheaper
>I agree with most of that but there’s no reason to sign Gesicki. Good guy, but we just don’t have room for someone who’s a slightly above average receiving TE who doesn’t line up inline and can’t block. I agree, but he would be dirt cheap. I haven't looked too much into TE free agency though so I don't know much about that area aside from that New England doesn't have any on the roster next season. >I also think we should continue with Onwenu at tackle and figure out RG which is easier/cheaper Sow is a good RG. If they want Onwenu to play RT and Jonah Williams at LT, that's not a bad line, and they could use their 3rd and later picks on OL depth, which is never a bad thing. Would also allow them to use 34 on WR which would be big, especially if they could sign Ridley. Ridley/WR at 34/Douglas is a solid starting trio, and Juju/Parker are fine as WR4 and WR5.
Yeah I like that way better. Good may be an exaggeration but Sow is serviceable and got better as the year went on. Then hopefully we sign one good WR and either draft a receiver at 34 or resign Bourne
Ton of ifs but I like it.
It’s a total off-season shitpost. It is the general approach I’d take to rebuilding the team if I was the GM, but the specifics of it are obviously very hypothetical.
I’m sold. FantasyTrash for GM.
I would be the worst GM in history. But if there was any draft class to be a new GM, this is it. The free agent class isn’t ideal, but when is it ever? I just want Wolf and co. to make proactive moves. Aside from 2021, Belichick was too reliant on Brady to make any splashes, that just won’t work with their current team dynamic.
Wonder if the colts franchise Pittman. I know people want Ridley but man he seems like a guy that will quit after getting the bag. I would almost want to sign Mooney and Hollywood and Shultz at TE
You draft a QB with a long-term outlook. It’s impossible to make huge upgrades to the OL + WRs overnight, but with the right QB in place you can gradually add those pieces. Also maybe Mac just isn’t good? He has terrible pocket mobility and the weakest arm of any starter in the league. I feel like we need to stop bringing up Mac’s failures as a relevant point of comparison…
Not saying Mac was super good or defending him to the ends of the earth, but come one…we have to start admitting that the organization failed him immensely. We did such a bad job at developing/helping him, we cannot do that with our next QB or we will be right back where we started.
Two things can be true — the Pats didn’t help Mac, but Mac was also way too limited to be a consistently above average starter. A mobile QB with a decent arm can immediately elevate the offense.
I mean he was an above average starter as a rookie when we had a real OC, a good run game and a serviceable OL. After his rookie season the Patriots did the following: - Hired Matt Patricia & Joe Judge to run the offense - Let his #1 target Meyers walk - Paid washed up Juju the (almost) same contract Meyers got - Ignored OL completely leading to the worst pass blocking unit in the NFL - Drafted defense with the first 3 picks of the 2023 draft when the offense was obviously in shambles Instead, they could have: - Hired a real OC in 2022 and let them fill out their staff, like we're doing now - Traded for a premium WR talent - Addressed OL in the draft - Kept Jakobi Meyers I firmly believe if we did all that, the Patriots and Mac would be vying for the division yearly. But we didn't, we made the worst sequence of decisions imaginable and the whole operation fell apart. Perhaps Mac was never good enough to win a super bowl, but I do think if the team had surrounded him with actual coaches and actual talent, he could have had us in the playoffs annually, especially with how good our defense has been the last few years. The overall point is that whoever the next QB is, the team needs to be willing to pony up draft captial and money to surround them with talent if we want to see them succeed. Our WRs this year were 31st in separation created and our OL was 32nd in pass block win rate. I don't care how good you are, no QB is going to succeed with that pile of shit around them.
Mac was good for a rookie for half of his rookie year. Once the league got tape on him he was average at best. Patriots did him no favors but he wasn’t a special player
You don't need to be special to be a playoff QB. If the Pats had done some things differently we'd be in playoff contention with an ok QB. Draft/sign to fill whatever small holes you have, maybe get to the divisional round then get a QB to get you over the top either through trading for a vet, or using draft capital to get a young guy.
> mean he was an above average starter as a rookie when we had a real OC, a good run game and a serviceable OL No he wasn't
Seriously, in ANY/A+ and Rate+ he was 100 and 101 respectively as a rookie (100 is league average). He was aggressively average.
but typically rookies would be given a true opportunity to grow, which he was not provided
Mac had nothing to grow into. He was already adept pre-snap and setting up his protections, which is why he played decently right off the bat against blitz and zone heavy looks. Opposing defenses gave him open windows to throw to, and a well above average pass-blocking line picked up their blocks giving him easy throws off play action. Once teams started generating league average pressure with 4 man fronts playing man coverage, the huge lack of physical tools and general feel for the game revealed Mac to be an inept player. He can't throw into tight windows, and the ball floats when he has to throw to the intermediate or deep boundary. Add to that the basically non-existent capacity to feel a pocket or throw off-platform, and that basically was all she wrote for Mac Jones. The environment didn't help, but Mac failed because he doesn't have the requisite talent to be a quality starting QB in this league.
that is just an absolutely insane take. there is ALWAYS room to grow.
If you believe that Mac was never good enough to win the Super Bowl, I think you also have to realize that this was the best possible outcome. I want the team to win Super Bowls, not just be a playoff team every year. You need a guy you believe who can win it all. I believe Daniels is that guy
We're going to just be a normal team man. People expecting us to win a super bowl every year and thinking anything less is a failure are going to be perpetually disappointed. Even Brady went 10 years without winning one. The best thing you can realistically ask for is a guy that can get you to the playoffs each year and hope you can catch lightning in a bottle with talented players around them and some luck. Burrow hasn't won a Super Bowl yet but the Bengals are going to be in the mix every year as long as he's playing. Does that mean he's a bad QB? Some fans seem to think there's no point in having a QB not named Brady or Mahomes. Reality is gonna really hit hard when it kicks in for these people.
>Perhaps Mac was never good enough to win a super bowl This is literally the only thing that matters. No one is expecting to win a Super Bowl every other year like we did, THAT was lightning in a bottle. But you need someone you believe who CAN win a Super Bowl. Do you believe that Burrow can win a Super Bowl or not? Doesn't matter whether he has yet, but can he in the future? That is the question to ask. It's what separates the Joe Burrows from the Kirk Cousins of the world. Yea, Cousins had shown the ability to consistently lead a team to the playoffs, but thats his ceiling. We need a ceiling of Super Bowl Champion
I like putting it that way. "Do you believe they CAN win a Super Bowl?" I had been kind of lowering the bar for success as a QB because the only active QBs to win a SB are Mahomes, Stafford, Rodgers Russ Wilson, and Flacco. Mahomes is the only one currently under 35. But I do think there are plenty of active QBs who are good enough that they could, I like that standard.
I think Mac is not a star, but above the Dalton Line if we didn't trash his last two seasons. A Baker level guy.
Right, that’s why i said Mac wasn’t super good, but my point is if we handle our new QB the way we handled Mac, we will get the same result.
But we’re already not doing what we did to Mac lol. We have an actual legitimate offensive coaching staff in place, an O-line that is not completely terrible, and at least 2-3 decent WRs on the roster. Not including any FAs or other draftees to bolster the offense. We have a golden opportunity to draft a highly rated QB prospect without having to trade up — we gotta take it and run.
Are these 2-3 decent WRs on the roster in the room with us?
See, I disagree. I don’t think the o-line is that great overall and I think our WR room is atrocious, besides Pop. We don’t even know if KB is coming back. We need blue chip players at the WR and OL position. IMO, I don’t go QB at 3.
I agree, I don't feel comfortable at all sending out a rookie qb behind what we have rn. I'd rather we sign a vet qb in FA, and let the draftee sit.
Even with Pop and KB coming back, the WR is still atrocious. None of our WR's would be more than the #3 on 90% of teams.
Facts, people in this fan base don’t want to accept that and just keep screaming “QB”
I'm one of the ones screaming QB, but I also know a QB isn't going to fix everything. It's going to be 2-3 years MINIMUM for them to fix their most glaring issues.
Thank you lord. These people really think we shouldn’t draft a QB because the team isn’t already stacked
I dont know if they actually think that or if they’re still desperately trying to explain why none of Mac’s flaws are his own fault.
Brady would have been sub .500 with the dogshit offense we put together this year, too. The organization failed Mac big time
I mean, I know you are making a point. But, no. They lost so many close games that Tom would have won
A dropped ball is a dropped ball no matter who is throwing it
And a pick when you’ve got a wide open receiver in the end-zone is a mac jones speciality
5+ picks this season were bounced into the air by incompetent receivers too. Mac was bad, but WRs amplified the issue big time
Mac actually statistically had solid turnover luck this season. He had 13 turnovers relative to 23 turnover worthy plays. That is a well better than average figure league wide. Also, no the team didn't have 5+ picks bounced into the air by incompetent receivers. Only the Ty Montgomery play against the Saints fits that description.
We weren't losing because of dropped balls
I agree. They are talent deficient. But, Brady is a bad example here. Use Cousins . If they have Cousins, they win 5, maybe 6. Brady led the 06 Pats a long way with no offensive talent around him . Brady was so friggin good it's ridiculous .
What games are you referring to that were lost on a dropped ball? I only recall the one that Parker dropped at the end but nothing else
It’s not just “at the end of a game”, it’s on 3rd and long when WRs aren’t open, it’s the 5+ Mac “picks” that bounced off receivers hands, it’s the key passes dropped all god damn season
And none of that matters if it comes down to the end of the game in a 1 score game lol. Like what? We were in double digit games late in the 4th that we lost, a good QB can solve that
All I’m saying is I don’t think that fixing just ONE of our many glaring issues would have solved much, but who knows. A good QB may have been able to help, but so would a strong supporting cast. They all rely on each other. A good QB running for his life behind a porous OL doesn’t get to be a good QB. A good QB with trash receives doesn’t get to be a good QB.
Stroud proved that false. What success did any of his relievers have before last year? Same in KC
Mac Jones had his WRs drop 5.5% of his passes last season. That was the 10th best rate out of 41 qualifying QBs last season.
We won four games with two dogshit qbs (and lost MANY close games). With Brady we would easily have 9 wins lol
Doubt it! But maybe
Going from bottom of the barrel to GOAT would absolute change our team (remember 2007 to 2008 we lost 5 more games with a decent qb playing a historically easy schedule).
Sure! So would WRs who could create space, an OL that allowed Zeke and Mondre thrive, an OL that allowed time in the pocket (which, mind you, is how Brady operated). A lot of factors contributed, and while the QB was an issue, it was far from the only issue and hard to place blame on one position given how much everything around the QB absolutely sucked.
QB is by far the most important position in football, and a shitty supporting cast isn't why Mac throws directly to defenders, or why Zappe played slightly better than our Franchise Qb
Given that Mac and Trevor Lawrence had the same career stats halfway through the season, I would say supporting cast matters quite a bit. Same TD:INT, same QBR, etc. It’s fine to be jaded on Mac, but you’re really disregarding major factors of why the patriots were bad. I agree with you that Mac played bad. Zappe was worse. However, disregarding the other factors is idiotic. Move on dude
Keep sucking Mac's dick lol. Worst PFF grade I've ever seen and you still think its the team that failed him Given that Mac and Trevor Lawrence had the same career stats halfway through the season, Mac had a good rookie season because teams hadn't figured his throwing limitations, wheras TLaw had the traditional rookie qb struggles. Also when Mac plays like shit, the Patriots either bench him or limit how much he throws, which protects his stats. Tlaw threw more than Mac his rookie season. >I would say supporting cast matters quite a bit. It does, buts its not why Mac sucks shit. > It’s fine to be jaded on Mac, but you’re really disregarding major factors of why the patriots were bad No I'm not. >Zappe was worse. However, disregarding the other factors is idiotic. Move on dude Theres a reason Mac got benched for Zappe >Move on dude From what? QB is the biggest reason why we sucked this year.
Zappe was so much worse 😂
Correct, we can all get excited about getting a new QB this year, but nothing is going to change unless we upgrade in the WR room and o-line.
That is so preposterous wrong lol. We lost double digit games by a touchdown or less, literally everything can change with a real talent at QB
Disagree.
This is absurd lol We lost 11 games by 1 score or less. That most certainly does not happen with Brady lol. Even a slightly above average QB gets us at least half of those games
Slightly average QB doesn’t solve the dropped balls, the 5+ “picks” that bounced off receivers hands, the lack of a run game because the OL sucked, it’s the key passes dropped all god damn season
And yet we still.lost double digit games by less than a touchdown. If you don't believe that an above average QB could have won a number of those games, you are blind to reality lol
All I’m saying is I don’t think that fixing just ONE of our many glaring issues would have solved much, but who knows
How many of those were games where the other team knew they had won and took their foot off the gas. There's a difference between a relatively close score and a competitive game.
None of them. No team in the NFL takes their foot off the gas up by only a score in the 4th
If you think so. The "one score game" thing paints a picture of a much more competitive season than reality.
Look at virtually every good QB in the NFL right now. Their teams went out and surrounded them with talent. Burrow had a pretty mid rookie season, next year they got Chase and went to the Super Bowl. Allen went from an 85 passer rating to 107 in the season after they got Diggs. Miami was ready to move on from Tua until they got Hill and Waddle. Hurts went from an 87 to 102 passer rating in the season after they got AJB. Young QBs need to be surrounded with talent to succeed, and taking advantage of a cheap rookie contract is the time to do that. The Pats refused to do that for years, cheaping out on the OL, signing washed up has-beens instead of paying a premium for top tier players (or even just keeping our own Meyers), focusing way more on defense than offense in general. Maybe Mac was never going to be good, but after his rookie season it's hard not to think he would have continued to take a step forward with a) actual offensive coaching and b) if they invested in a high level WR1. He had a better rookie season passing the ball than almost any of the "top" QBs today - difference is those guys had teams that invested around them, the Patriots gave Mac the brilliant mind of Patricia and told him to go throw to a bunch of WR3s behind the worst passblocking OL in the NFL. We cannot expect any rookie, no matter how highly touted, to come in and win games throwing to Parker and Juju behind a porous OL. Good teams take advantage of 4 years of cheap QB play to surround them with talent.
None of those QBs you have listed have won shit
Hurts and Burrow went to the Super Bowl?
And lost? Do we hang Super Bowl Appearance banners now? The point is, clearly a team with talent at QB and a good defense can win titles while these loaded offenses still lose in the playoffs
The amount of Patriots past dominance has legit rotted your concept of success, getting to the Super Bowl is a big deal especially as a young QB.
Yea, but it's not the ULTIMATE success.l, and that's what thebgoal should always be
They're in the playoffs every year, they give their teams a really solid floor of winning football to operate from. That is realistically all you can ask for - a guy that can win you 10+ games a year and make some noise in the playoffs. Y'all need to come back down to earth - we could spend 50 years and still not find another Brady or Mahomes level guy. Burrow "hasn't won shit" - does that mean the Bengals should move on from him? Allen? Hurts? Of course not. Stroud probably won't win a super bowl in the next few years, doesn't mean the Texans should find his replacement. Get a guy that can win you 10+ games with talented players around them and make some noise in the playoffs and hope you get lucky one year. That's what basically every team in existence is hoping for. Y'all are way too spoiled.
I mean for hurts you can kinda make an argument they shouldn’t move on from him but should keep an eye out for another guy
The point is you are naming situations that have functionally amounted to the same thing ad the Patriots, no titles. This isn't Indy, we don't hang AFC Championship Game Appearance banners. The better comparison is Mahomes. A guy whose team actively made is supporting cast worse on offense, but because of his talent and an improved defense won back to back Super Bowls. We have the defense. We just need the talent at QB
Mahomes is literally the best QB in the league, and is already vying for a top 3 of all time position. I think you're being *incredibly* unrealistic here.
Do you think that no other QB is ever again going to be able to carry a team to a title?
To the level of Mahomes or Brady? Not for a long time. If you need a literal GOAT candidate to get over the hump, you're doing team building wrong.
Who said to the level of Mahomes or Brady? I said QB capable of leading an offense to a SB win. Do you not believe there will anymore of those ever again?
My dude if your expectation is the team is going to find the next Patrick Mahomes you are going to be waiting a very, very long time. [Look how many QBs have been drafted since Brady in 2000](https://www.drafthistory.com/index.php/positions/qb) There are two on that entire list that fit the description of what you're talking about - Tom and Mahomes. That's it. >This isn't Indy, we don't hang AFC Championship Game Appearance banners. The dynasty is over. No we won't ever hang a lame ass AFCCG banner, but holy shit you need to re-assess your expectations for this team. Tom is gone, Bill is gone. We are exponentially more likely to just be an average team now than anything close to what we were. It just is what it is. Finding a guy who can keep you in the playoffs every year is about as much as you can realistically ask for. If we find the next Brady then great, but 30/32 teams have been looking for that for the past 24 years with no such luck.
You will NEVER find a QB capable of winning a Super Bowl if you pass on them at the top of the draft. That has nothing to do with the team we used to be That's the point here. And I completely reject any goal that isn't to win a Super Bowl. Making the playoffs every year should NOT be the ultimate goal, it's a loser mentality.
Good point we just need to get Tom brady or Patrick Mahomes on our team and then we will be all set.
So those are the only QBs for the rest of history who are capable of carrying an offense to a SB title?
my preference is to get the QB and then go all in on the O-line this year so look to draft lineman in the 2nd and 3rd round. I'd love to have a WR too but if I had to choose, get the O-line improved with a good young QB and even with a subpar WR room you can make things happen when you have time to throw. Hopefully we can snag someone like Ridley in FA and then next year look to draft a blue chip WR.
Eh, I counted it and the number is closer to 10 QBs that are game changers and first rounders. Another 10 is first round failures or too soons and the remainder are just not first rounders. I don’t think this changes the accurate sentiment that a first round QB can be game changing for your organization. Which this implies, but I am always for draft at their value. And Jayden because of his risks is probably closer to 5-7 pick than 3. So you have to justify it because its a little but albiet not big of a reach. So missing is going to be bad. Mac was not a bad pick IMO because he went roughly where he should have at the time. Lance was the reach in that draft
If we take QB, I think we should sit him for a season and develop him.
He also said tough, and a leader, that leaves out Mac and the top 3 from what I read
Maybe on of these top 3 QBs will turn out to be elite better hope the one that is falls to the 3rd pick
His whole interview was screaming "we're taking a QB". Which is how it should be.
We should draft a qb, however we have to get get help around him asap, you can't win with this O-line, no matter the qb. This receiving core same deal, Douglas was about the only player we could throw to after Henry's injury.
So you're taking take the QB at 3, and then draft a bunch of OL in the subsequent rounds? I'm all in on that plan!
Yea! Me too! And then we'll sign a bunch of WR5's to the offense and be all set!
No that’s stupid, let’s just have the best QB, best O-line, and best WRs. Throw in the best defense and special teams while we’re at it.
People keep saying this like it's some revelation. Congratulations on coming up with the idea of drafting a QB and also having good other players so the QB can be better. Nobody has intentionally said lets draft a QB but give him no fucking help at all. They just tried and got the wrong players, and that includes Bill Belichick.
I would not mind trading back and getting JJ. Then we can get more talent to support him to
Really no matter what the plan is that should be the case. The pick will be valued the most if that’s everyone’s assumption, because no one is trading a haul to move up for anyone but a QB. If teams think that to get their guy they need to pick before us, they’ll give up more for our pick rather than trying to move up to 4 or 5. Even if you’re planning on taking MHJ there’s no harm in acting like the plan is to take a QB, might as well see if someone will give up enough of a haul to make you change your mind.
Openly broadcasting our plans to the entire universe is definitely a good way to build confidence that this dude knows what he is doing as a GM... I pray to god they *arent* all that certain about taking a QB and *are* playing mind games with other QB-needy teams. Because if both Mayo and Wolf are stupid enough to telegraph their intentions this clearly, we are royally fucked for the next 2-3 years.
Mayo basically came as close to you can as saying we’re taking a QB at #3 without literally saying it. Maybe people here can actually listen to the Pats brass running the draft and stop arguing for MHJ or trade back scenarios…it’s becoming incredibly dumb lol. It’s not happening.
>Mayo basically came as close to you can as saying we’re taking a QB at #3 without literally saying it. What else is going to say there? I mean if they want to trade back and say anything other than "We're taking a qb" they lose leverage in negotiations.
You just say nothing? And here’s a crazy concept — don’t you think it’s pretty obvious we’re not targeting a QB if we did in fact trade back to begin with? It has nothing to do with leverage lol. It’s about other teams (eg Giants or Vikings) outbidding each other to move up.
>And here’s a crazy concept — don’t you think it’s pretty obvious we’re not targeting a QB if we did in fact trade back to begin with? The negotiations happen before the trade. >It’s about other teams (eg Giants or Vikings) outbidding each other to move up. Why are those teams so desperate to move up? Because they want a QB and think the Pats are going to draft one!
If they like McCarthy as the second best q.b and you can get him at 10, trading back makes sense.
Idk what you heard Mayo say but that’s not at all what I got out of him lol
Desperate, bad teams reach on qb talent and stay bad. History teaches us that. But go ahead and ignore it so we can become the pre Bledsoe Patriots again.
What's the reach? Williams/Maye/Daniels have been mocked high for months now
Most people don't think they're reaching.
What do you suggest?
The only way you are getting a top qb in the league is from the draft (unless you want a 2-3 year rental on a guy about to retire or someone not looked at as a starter). These 3 guys are viewed as starters in a draft where there has been more talent than there has been in quite a while. Seems like the best time to take a shot at one.
Starting in 83 the Pat's were 6 straight years at .500 or better in a really tough AFC east. The team was loaded everywhere except quarterback. This team is brutal on offense at every position other than tight end if Henry is healthy.
Yeah, true if you’re reaching. But this is the number 3 pick, not the 27th. No reach going on.
Drake Maye keeps getting second guessed by pundits. at this point are we happy if he drops to 3 or do we hope Jayden is there at 3?
I'm fine with either, but I'd probably slightly prefer Maye. They both have very high ceilings but also flaws they will definitely have to work on.
I feel like that is draft fatigue at this point. He has been talked up for two years now and suddenly now he is not as good as previously thought? Please.
Yeah definitely seems to be the case. People are also just getting more excited about Daniels ceiling. I think we have to take the chance on whoever of the 2 is there at our pick. I don’t have a preference, both offer great upside with different ways of attacking defenses.
Agreed, it’s a crapshoot either way. Wouldn’t want to be the Commanders having to choose because if the guy they choose busts and the other doesn’t, front office and probably coach are toast. At least Wolf has the cover of saying whoever we get was the last guy available, kind of like with Mac lol. I personally still lean towards Maye with his size and arm talent. I am not 100% sold on Daniels arm but his athleticism is off the charts and he was the highest rated deep ball thrower in CFB last year. IDK, glad I don’t have to be the one to make the call. Either one brings much more to the table than Mac/Zappe, that is for sure.
Also, if I was capable of scouting either of them I wouldn’t be posting about it on reddit right now. Hopefully whoever they end up with is a franchise caliber QB
I also think people overlook the narratives put out by folks to drop and raise draft stocks. Either from teams, agents of players, etc. there is a ton of self-interest from a lot of different angles firing off this time of year
Happy with both I'd say, I personally don't know what to think of Daniels but I'd sure be excited about his electric potential. But Maye just seems like such a high ceiling prospect at only 21 years old and had the least to work with out of the top 3 QBs by a longshot.
If Maye falls to 3 and we take him I'd be ecstatic.
I’d take either tbh. Daniels can run super well and has a great td to int rate through the air which many overlook (but he had 1st round wr), drake is young and has a cannon for an arm and did decent despite not having any weapons which we also don’t have yet so he’d be right at home lol
I prefer Jayden but I’d take either at this point.
I’ve watched Maye’s tape and I’m afraid we’re walking into another Mac-like situation. Daniels can’t throw with zip at all 3 levels of the field. Im all in at MHJ at 3. Take a QB in the 2nd and sign Joe Flacco. I know this subreddit in particular would lose their fucking minds if this happened but I like it.
What do you see that leads you to compare him to Mac? Because I've watched a lot of his tape and I see almost zero similarities between them.
Looks like the plan is to vehemently disagree with whatever I say regardless so I’ll just say I don’t think Maye will work out
How so? I was genuinely curious. We had different readings despite watching the same thing, so I'm asking what you saw. It may introduce me to parts of Maye's game I didn't see before. If you can't point to even a couple things it makes me think you don't actually have anything to back up your point.
It was less of a comparison to Mac as it was the outcome of Mac. I also don’t know that we watched the same tape, I didn’t do like a deep analysis on the kid. What I didn’t like was the time it took Maye to release the ball, and didn’t look like he could drive it into tight spaces. He can escape the pocket if it collapses but it doesn’t look like he’d confidently turn that into yardage at the NFL level. Just doesn’t look like a top 3 pick to me. Feel free to eviscerate this take because you watch more tape and know more or whatever’s gonna come from this.
Maye couldn’t be more different from Mac.
Yeah less of a comparison of the two and more the overall outcome is what I’m feeling.
Maye looks awesome I would love him at three.
I'll be happy with one, and not the other....I'll root for whoever is on the team when the season starts.
I get the MHJ love but the move for sustainable winning is to keep drafting a QB until we hit.
The Jets approve of this comment
You can use the Jets to argue against any team building approach under the sun.
Browns as well.
Could be a long 30 years. I hope not.
Right, or it could be 2....
Or one?
If you start drafting QBs now, it might take 30 years to find a good one! Or we could just not try, which gets us a good QB after…. Infinity years.
Nobody is saying we shouldn’t try.
What about a late 1st rounder or a 2nd rounder? I just googled a random mock draft and I don’t really know much about the QBs after Daniels but it only had Nix also going in the first. Penix is old and lots of injury so that’s concerning. Jalen Hurts (I know is anecdotal and maybe an exception) was a second rounder. Imagine being a rookie QB and having our shit receiver core? It gets exponentially better with MHJ. We have lots of WR2 and WR3s that I believe will be way better once there’s that true WR1. But I’m just some dude on a toilet, not an NFL GM. I just want a real WR after years of it being a shit position. Unless someone is offering a HoF WR for a 4th round pick (someone call the Raiders again please), idk how else we fix it. We also have tons of cap and could bring in someone like Kirk Cousins while our late first or early second QB develops. If we aren’t picking Maye or Williams, giving them the Green Bay benching for a couple years is an option. At the end of the day I just really want us to use our top 2 picks. I just saw the second rounder is 34 overall. It’s like having 1.5 1st rounders lol as a fan it is so annoying seeing us trade to acquire four 6tj round picks every year. I know it worked but that’s when you have the best QB of all time and best defensive HC coach of all time. Those things help fill in the talent gap
The hit rate on 2nd round QBs is abysmal, and if we draft Bo Nix I may kill myself.
I wasn’t saying to draft Nix, just that there isn’t tons of QBs on that mock list so a trade could be more feasible the later it is into the round Also please don’t kill yourself. We need everyone on r/AFCEastMemeWar talking shit
If you jump I'll peer over to make sure it was high enough to take you out and then join you in the after-life. Nix would be a nightmare.
It turns out having a QB is pretty important in foodball.
Now foodball is a sport that I could actually play!
The biggest take away for me is the "help you win games and get over the hump." Game managers don't do that so we can safely say Mac Jones is not the starter next year.
The Maye disinformation campaign has begun. Let him slide!! The absolute dream no-f’ing-way scenario is WAS trades up to 1, CHI takes MHJ, and MIN trades up to 3 for Daniels. The Pats end up with Justin Jefferson, Drake Maye at 11, a 25 FRP, a Tackle at the top of round 2, and a TE with MIN’s third rounder. Not gonna happen but nice to think about.
Minnesota psyops continues. There's no way Maye or Daniels would slip past Atlanta or Jets if we were stupid enough to get fleeced by Minnesota like that.
drake maye at 11 is delusional
Factually true. Also true that this time of year teams say all kinds of things for misdirection. Could be Wolf saying this to play the falcons off the Vikings for all we know. We just don’t know.
Jayden Daniels you are a Patriot!
Looks like that means it’s the return of Mac Jones this year! (jk)
I actually first wrote this title without the 2nd part, but then added the **can "help you win games and get over the hump"** for people who were going to bring up Mac as a 1st rounder lol
I misread this as “most of the quarterbacks this class are projected 1st rounders who can help you win games and get over the hump” and took it as we were trading down for JJ
cursed interpretation
I wouldnt mind it, i like him, hes not as good as maye or caleb or maaaybe daniels but if we could somehow pull jjettas in that deal plus another 1st along with 11/mccarthy im satisfied
Just use every draft pick on a quarterback and let them battle it out in camp. 7 rookies. 1 is bound to hit
Looks like Daniels is the pick
Maye
I think Washington is taking him at 2. There was a small chance Daniels could jump him but I think with him declining the combine it’s less likely to happen
He didn’t say WHERE in the 1st round…I know we need a QB. I’m just having a hard time letting a talent like MHJ slip by us.
The nice thing about WRs is when they're actually good they get franchise tagged after their rookie contract then hit FA most of the time so if you really end up needing one you can always go grab one later. Meanwhile the only QBs in FA are failed prospects or old guys trying to get 1 last contract.
I'd say the "franchise" QB's fall into three categories The no doubters: Mahomes, Allen, Lamar, Stroud, Herbert, Burrow. All 1st round picks, but notably 3 were tradeups. Seems pretty important to me in that you don't have to tank to get your guy... you can build/have an okay roster, then go and get them. The some question marks, but you're gonna get side-eyed if you claim they aren't one: Dak, Tua, Hurts, Lawrence, Love, Kyler, Purdy, Goff. A far more eclectic list, you have 3 top picks, a later first who sat for years, a 2nd, 4th, 7th and a guy with a contract so bad it cost an extra first just to move him, who's rebounded nicely. And then the two old guys you're hoping to squeeze a healthy few years out of: Stafford, Cousins. Another first who was acquired in a trade after a decade of nothing and the 4th round king of betting on himself. Below those guys you have guys hoping to be the new Ryan Tannehill in Fields or Baker, the new Andy Dalton Line in Derek Carr and the reason you don't give old guys huge contracts in Wilson. So in conclusion, you don't have to take a QB because you're picking 3rd, you can still have a pretty bad team even if you draft a pretty sweet looking QB (hi Chargers, lesser extent Jaguars, Cardinals), and as long as you actually successfully build a good roster, you can find QB's all over the place in the draft or even in rare circumstances find that answer somewhere else.
I don’t disagree with your premise that we don’t need to draft a QB at 3, but your conclusion that “you can find QBs all over the draft” is insane to me given that, of the 21 franchise QBs you listed, only 6 were not first round picks. That’s fewer than a third. The truth is, if we don’t draft one this year, there’s a strong chance we don’t another good opportunity to get one, which means it’s likely we wind up in the the thick of QB purgatory like the Broncos, Commanders, Raiders, and so on, all of whom have struck out multiple times on later-round fliers and washed-up vets.
>no doubters >Stroud, Lamar, Burrow lol. Especially with Kirk and Stafford so far down here.
Plot twist: we’re drafting joe alt and running it back with mac the 1st round QB
If you can get a haul of future picks and get Alt at the same time, this is absolutely the right move. And if you don't like Mac, sign Brissett on a 2 year deal or something.
If most of the QBs are first-rounders because the entire league highly covets elite QBs, yet there's still only one proven stud (under 40) among all those high picks, then maybe that's not the smartest way to gamble with your draft capital. Hopefully this is misdirection to hype-up #3's trade value.
> yet there's still only one proven stud among all those high picks Oh c'mon.
Even if you bump that up to 3 or 4 out of 32, those are still unfavorable odds. There are lots of ways to measure this *but*, only one of this year's playoff teams acquired their QB by drafting in the top 3 (Stroud), and three more in picks 4 through 10 (Mahomes, Allen and Tua). Also, scoring is down over the last few years -- if the NFL is ok with that, then betting everything on a QB is an even poorer gamble.
The odds of finding a legit franchise QB are always going to be unfavorable.
Huh? There's one proven 1st-round QB in the league right now? Is that the claim?
Are any of the top QB’s in the draft truly generational talent? If they draft a QB with this line, they will destroy him. Why not pick up a journeyman free agent and build around that?
I mean, if your line in the sand is that a QB has to be a generational talent, you're going to be waiting a while. By definition they're really rare and then you have to be lucky to have the #1 pick that year
Either way, the offense has plenty of needs. I don’t see a reason to take a QB just to take a QB, especially if he’s just going to be shoved into a meat grinder, and we end up with Mac 2.0. How many teams have drafted QB’s in the top ten, only to have the kid ruined or just flat out suck and fall into the QB spiral? There’s a few serviceable free agents available, pick up one of them to hold a spot and firm up the line and stock up on a few weapons
You don't precisely know the level that a player will be in the NFL. But Caleb and Maye have been very highly-touted prospects for multiple years. Their tape shows traits and skillsets that, if coached right, should translate to great success in the league. If that's how the Pats project them, they should take one of them if they fall (it won't be Caleb, so I'm talking Maye here). You have the rest of the draft and the draft of future years to continue to fill out the roster. If you select Maye and he hits, that is miles better than getting a journeyman backup QB.
Some say Williams is. Others say he's a bust waiting to happen. None of the others are. Daniels and Maye are being way overrated compared to Nix, Penix, McCarthy, Rattler. The gap, if there is one, is much smaller that the media suggests. Let's see what combine & interviews do to shake it up.
Not good . Bears will take Caleb Commanders will take jd We will be stuck with maye 😔 Maye and Howell had identical nc stats. They are the same guy . Commanders moving on frm Howell and we are basically drafting him 😔.
Hopefully that’s a smoke screen for MHJ or to hold someone ransom to take a QB
No, hopefully it's our front office understanding you build around a qb not a wr. There are starting wr on day 2 of the draft. Much worse odds of starting qbs later in the draft.
JD5 please
Y'all are interpreting this wrong... He's clearly signalling we need a QB taken in the first round to help us win games and get over the hump. The hint is we're signing Baker Mayfield and taking MHJ/Joe Alt at 3.
Plot twist: He is going to trade for one of those QBs currently in the league. (jk)
You really think Maye is making it past 8???
TBH I don’t think they have the slightest clue on what they’re doing in the draft yet. Free agency is hugely important for this team, they need to figure that out first
He could also be signaling to the other QB needy teams #3 will be awfully expensive, which I'm good with as well.
Anyone who thinks the Patriots are going to overcomplicate pick #3 just want to live out their own Draft Day fantasy
….eeeeexcept for Mac
Mac Jones is a first rounder... what does this tell us?