INDIANAPOLIS — Reminder for anyone focused on their team possibly trading up to the NFL Draft’s No. 3 overall pick:
The New England Patriots, who hold that pick, desperately need a quarterback. They need a quarterback as badly as any team in the league.
So if there is a third highly-coveted QB in this class — a player other teams are clamoring to acquire — the Patriots need that player just as much if not more.
Sure, they could go the veteran trade route or make a free agent signing instead — the Justin Fields, Russell Wilson or Tyrod Taylor options, for instance.
A King’s ransom could tempt personnel czar Eliot Wolf to move down the board and rebuild key parts of this roster with cost-controlled youth.
Still, this is owner Robert Kraft’s first NFL Draft since parting ways with Bill Belichick. This is Kraft’s opportunity to pen the next chapter of his impressive legacy with the selection of a player who could become New England’s next great QB.
This is a chance to make a franchise-redefining selection. It’s hard imagine he would pass that up.
A Wednesday report by NFL Network that Belichick loved Heisman-winning LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels was noteworthy.
It confirmed the Patriots’ six-time Super Bowl winning coach was eyeballing college football’s best 2023 QB while preparing to pick at the top of this spring’s draft.
But this is Kraft’s team. And now, it is his team without Belichick, who will no longer be making the picks for the Pats.
It is Kraft’s team without Belichick coming off an exhausting and tiresome tug of war between the owner and former coach over former first-round QB pick Mac Jones, as well.
All of that toiling did no one in Foxborough any good. In many ways, it only delayed the inevitable.
Remember when Kraft said last year that rapper Meek Mill had told him Lamar Jackson wanted to be a Patriot, but it would be Belichick’s decision on whether to pursue him?
That was bizarre. Bizarre especially considering the season on offense that followed, which brought Belichick’s storied run to a close.
Of course, this does not mean that the Giants, Atlanta Falcons, Minnesota Vikings, Denver Broncos and Las Vegas Raiders shouldn’t call Wolf and the Patriots to make an offer.
As Giants GM Joe Schoen said Tuesday here in Indianapolis, some teams need until late March or early April to gain clarity on their own rosters — through the first wave of free agency — and on the prospects they’ll have a chance to select.
Behind the Chicago Bears at No. 1 and the Washington Commanders at No. 2, though — teams that are both expected to select quarterbacks — it is extremely difficult to believe the Patriots won’t also go QB in that spot.
Jerod Mayo is the new head coach, and Wolf is running the draft. But all eyes in New England now are on how Kraft will pivot off the greatest coach of all time.
Finding the next Tom Brady in the sixth round would be nice, of course. But there’s a better chance of hitting on one in Round One. And if any team needs to be in the quarterback market, it’s the Pats.
