Patriots Rumors: Team mulled moving up for Baker Mayfield
Recent New England Patriots rumors involve the 2018 NFL Draft, as the team reportedly mulled trading up to land Oklahoma quarterback, Baker Mayfield.
Leading up to the 2018 NFL Draft, there were a number of New England Patriots rumors swirling. A majority of the Patriots rumors involved the quarterback position.
Tom Brady is coming off the third MVP award of his career in 2017. That would raise the question as to why the Patriots would be looking at quarterbacks in the draft. While Brady played great again, he will be 41-years old when the 2018 regular season begins.
Life after Brady is not something Patriots fans want to think about, but the team has to prepare for it. While Brady confirmed he will be back in 2018, and wants to play into his mid-40’s, he will have to be replaced eventually. The only other quarterback on the roster is 32-year old Brian Hoyer. New England traded both of their younger quarterbacks, Jacoby Brissett and Jimmy Garoppolo, last season.
Finding a long-term quarterback would have seemed to be near the top of the Patriots to-do list. Patriots rumors heading into the draft said they were considering multiple options at quarterback. Baker Mayfield, Lamar Jackson and Mason Rudolph were all mentioned as options.
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New England ended up passing on Jackson twice in the first round and passed on Rudolph as well. Instead, they draft LSU quarterback Danny Etling in the seventh round. Etling is a developmental prospect, at best, that is a long way away from contributing to an NFL team.
Mayfield, the Patriots never had a chance at. He ended up going No. 1 overall to the Cleveland Browns. It was a mild upset, as Sam Darnold was considered the top quarterback prospect. However, had Mayfield not gone first overall, New England was contemplating a move up for him.
According to Mayfield’s agent, Jack Mills, the Patriots indicated that they were going to try moving up to the No. 2 spot in the draft to land Mayfield. While New England never got that chance, Mills said that the Patriots were interested in his client had he fell in the draft.
In addition to the news about New England, Mills indicated that the New York Jets were his floor. While visiting the Jets, they made it clear he was their guy should he be available.
While this was an interesting Patriots rumor, it seems very unlikely it would happen. With the second pick, the New York Giants selected running back Saquon Barkley. The Giants liked Barkley so much that they had their pick ready to go a few seconds after Mayfield was selected, but the NFL wanted them to wait for television.
Convincing the Giants to move out of the No. 2 spot would have been a very difficult thing to do. They loved Barkley and general manager David Gettleman said he had no interest in trading out of the spot. However, he did add that he received one reasonable offer, but wouldn’t go into details about it.
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Could that offer had come from New England? It very well could have been. It would have been interesting to see what kind of package it would have taken for New England to move all the way up to the No. 2 spot, spurning their AFC East rivals one more time.