New England Patriots named a good fit for Taven Bryan

With the NFL Draft quickly approaching, Pro Football Focus recently named some of the best fits for prospects. Who is a good fit for the New England Patriots?

As usual, it has been a busy offseason already for the New England Patriots. As the AFC Champions, there were many teams that coveted some of the free agents for New England.

For the most part, the Patriots ended up losing most of their key free agents. Nate Solder, Dion Lewis, Danny Amendola, and Malcolm Butler all ended up signing elsewhere this offseason, as they all received lucrative contracts.

Despite suffering some losses in free agency, the Patriots have been able to do a good job so far this offseason with some signings of their own. Also, they have been active on the trade front.

Heading into the offseason, one of the clear needs for New England was to upgrade their defensive line. In 2017, the defensive line lacked quality depth, as Trey Flowers and Malcom Brown were pretty much it for New England.

So far this offseason, the Patriots were able to trade for defensive tackle Danny Shelton from the Cleveland Browns and then signed Adrian Clayborn from the Atlanta Falcons. Shelton is one of the top run stuffers in the league, and Clayborn was one of the top pass-rushers available in free agency.

Recently, Pro Football Focus talked about some of the best fits for prospects coming out of college. For defensive tackle Taven Bryan, they named the Patriots as a great fit. Here’s what they had to say.

"Malcom Brown was New England’s highest-graded defensive interior player for the Patriots last year and his 70.0 pass-rush grade ranked just 64th in the league. The Patriots will love Bryan’s versatility as a rusher as he also created pressure outside on one out of every 20.9 snaps, seventh-best in the class, and was very effective on stunts."

Bryan is projected to be a first-round pick, as the Patriots would likely have to use their 31^st overall selection in order to take him. Coming out of Florida, he is one of the best interior defenders in the class.

Next: Grading recent free agency signings

One of the appealing things about Bryan is that he projects to be an effective player against both the run and the pass. While the addition of Shelton improves the run defense for New England, he isn’t much of a factor as a pass-rusher. It will be interesting to see if the Patriots are looking to add yet another defensive lineman in the draft, but Bryan could be a name to keep an eye on.