New regime, new quarterback?
That appears to be the Patriots’ play with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, according to a report Thursday from The Athletic, with first-year head coach Jerod Mayo and the team’s de facto general manager, director of scouting Eliot Wolf, looking to “jump-start this rebuild” beginning with the addition of a rookie signal-caller.
“The Patriots really want to draft a quarterback with the No. 3 pick,” the report states.
“The front office wrapped up its pre-free-agency meetings a week ago and seems to be on the same page that the best way to jump-start this rebuild and yield long-term success is to find a young quarterback in the NFL Draft to build around.”
This year’s class of quarterbacks includes USC’s Caleb Williams — who has been heavily linked to the Bears, the owners of the No. 1 overall pick — North Carolina’s Drake Maye and LSU’s Jayden Daniels, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner.
With the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine getting underway in Indianapolis this week, a league source told The Athletic how the Patriots “will likely question Maye” as to “why his stats dipped in his final year as North Carolina’s starter,” in which he threw 24 touchdowns against nine interceptions versus 38 scores and seven turnovers in 2022, whereas Daniels may be pressed on his transfer from Arizona State to LSU in 2022.
It’s unclear which prospects will be available when the Patriots are on the clock as the quarterback-needy Commanders currently hold the No. 2 pick in the draft.
Beyond the potential addition of a new quarterback, the Patriots are looking to evolve elsewhere following the January departure of longtime coach Bill Belichick after 24 seasons at the helm.
Wolf told the media Tuesday at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis how the team would have an “open, kind of less hard-ass type vibe in the building.”
Mayo, a former Patriots linebacker who played under Belichick, later clarified the comments were not a shot at the Super Bowl-winning head coach, who was not tapped to coach another NFL team in this offseason’s hiring cycle.
“It’s going to be different, but at the same time I would say Bill did a great job for a long period of time,” Mayo said, according to ESPN. “I don’t want you [in the media] to take this as ‘because we’re changing, there are shots toward the previous regime.'”
The Patriots hit rock bottom last year at 4-13, during which starting quarterback Mac Jones — the 15th overall pick in 2021 — was benched in favor of backup Bailey Zappe, a fourth-rounder in 2022.
Wolf, a former Packers executive, did not expand on the Patriots’ plans concerning Jones, 25, and Zappe, 24, at this week’s NFL combine.
“We’re not going to be a program that’s talking about these guys in terms of through the media,” Wolf said.
“We’re going to do what’s best for the team behind the scenes and the strategy of that is going to be myself, Jerod Mayo and [director of player personnel] Matt Groh and we’re going to try to do the right thing for the team.”
The 2024 NFL Draft begins on Thursday, April 25 in Detroit.