National Football League

Which QB might Patriots take at No. 3? They might have to take what they get

Published Feb. 29, 2024 2:34 p.m. ET

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Henry McKenna

AFC East Reporter

The New England Patriots are in the hole. You know, like in baseball. But also, they might be in a hole when it comes to team-building, too.

They're third in the draft — and so they'll spend the next few months trying to figure out what will happen first and second. It's a foregone conclusion that the Chicago Bears (or the team that trades for the No. 1 pick) will take quarterback Caleb Williams. But then comes the question that everyone will wonder again and again and again and again (and again and again) before April 25.

Jayden Daniels or Drake Maye?

For what it's worth, former Patriots coach and general manager Bill Belichick has an affinity for one of these quarterbacks, according to NFL Network's Bridget Condon.

"Bill Belichick loved Jayden Daniels. He was a guy on the top of their draft board. He was going to do everything in his power to get that guy. Does [Patriots coach] Jerod Mayo stick with that and say, ‘OK, how do we figure out how to get this quarterback in here?' Or is he going to say, ‘I'm now the new man in charge. I'm going to do things my way,'" Condon said during the NFL Combine broadcast Wednesday.

It's odd to hear that Belichick had anyone at the top of his draft board given that no team really knows — not even right now — who is atop their draft board. 

"We didn't get too far into the QBs," a source close to Belichick told FOX Sports by text Thursday. "He probably liked the run-pass threat. That's what gave us so much trouble … so Bill normally liked things he had a tough time defending."

Regardless of whether Belichick rated or currently rates Daniels as the QB1 in this draft, the truth is that the current Patriots regime's evaluation of the LSU prospect can absolutely match that of the past regime. Condon set up the two regimes as needing to be in opposition with one another, but that's not how it is. It's just that New England is moving in a new direction, starting with how they run their scouting department and grade their prospects, like Daniels.

But just because Belichick liked Daniels does not mean Eliot Wolf, New England's de-facto general manager, won't arrive at that same conclusion. Most draft evaluators like Daniels a great deal. He's widely considered the second- or third-best player in this draft. It's just that Wolf will get to that result through a different process.

"We changed the grading system. It's a little bit more similar to what we did in Green Bay," he said. "The previous Patriots system was more, ‘This is what the role is,' and this is more kind of value-based."

This is why Belichick so often strayed from consensus when taking prospects. He drafted players he saw as having specific roles on his team. That was often just as important as whether they were the most talented player available. Most teams in the NFL have drafted talent and molded it into their system — the Packers, who groomed Wolf, abide by this strategy. Belichick worked in an opposite manner, with a system that demanded a certain kind of talent. And so he drafted accordingly.

New England's new era will have an adjusted thought process.

"I think it makes it a lot easier for scouts to rate guys and put them in a stack of ‘this guy's the best, this guy is the worst, and everything in between falls into place' rather than sort of more nuanced approaches," Wolf said. "I just think it accounts value better and also makes it easier for the scouts — in the fall as well as in the spring — to determine where guys will get drafted. 

"This process is a lot more collaborative. We hear from the scouts more. We're going to be able to determine, together, what is the best thing for the team at the end of the day."

In the previous regime, if Belichick liked Daniels, the Patriots were taking Daniels. It was that simple. Belichick was the coach, the GM and the final decisionmaker. That occasionally irked scouts, because they'd work all year to evaluate players — and Belichick would overlook those evaluations to take the player he thought was best.

That's not happening anymore.

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Wolf hasn't yet made up his mind on how to rank these quarterbacks — nor will his rankings dictate the team's pick at third overall. Wolf and Mayo have emphasized that they will collaborate with Director of Player Personnel Matt Groh. New offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt is expected to have a role in the search for the team's next QB, too. That's a lot of voices involved in the selection.

"We're pretty early the process," Wolf said on Tuesday when asked about the QBs. "I haven't met any of these guys. Jerod hasn't met any of these guys, so as we continue through the process here, we'll determine what's best for the team."

What the Patriots will have to determine in the coming weeks is how they rate their quarterbacks — and whether their QB2 is so good that they want to consider trading up one spot with the Commanders to get that guy (or, less likely, whether their QB1 is so good they want to consider trading up to No. 1). 

The most likely outcome is the Patriots sitting at third-overall and taking whichever player slips to them. And that might mean creating a plan for that quarterback ahead of time, regardless of whether he's Daniels or Maye.

Because as much as the Patriots might like one over the other, they might not get to decide who is the face of their franchise. If they simply want to draft one of the top three quarterbacks, which is their inclination, according to multiple reports out of Indianapolis, then the Patriots will have to take what they get.

Belichick's preference won't matter. It's the Commanders and the Bears' opinions that matter. They control which quarterback New England will get.

The Patriots might just have to be OK with taking who they get. And there's nothing wrong with that, particularly if their evaluations have the second and third quarterback ranked similarly.

Prior to joining FOX Sports as the AFC East reporter, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.

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Jayden Daniels

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Henry McKenna