New England Patriots bring in two undrafted rookie free agent QBs
The plans fell through for the New England Patriots to draft a quarterback this year, but the team has agreed to terms with two undrafted rookie QBs.
The New England Patriots had every intention of drafting a quarterback this year, but instead elected to pass on multiple opportunities to select a highly rated quarterback at any point in the draft this past weekend.
The Patriots did in fact stay true to their original plans of adding some young QBs though, as they have agreed to terms with two undrafted rookie free agent quarterbacks just one day after the close of the 2020 NFL Draft.
The first undrafted rookie free agent quarterback that the Patriots signed is J’mar Smith. Smith is 6’1 and 220 lbs, and he played in 43 games during his four years at Louisiana Tech — throwing for 9,523 yards along with 51 touchdown passes. He improved his overall game in each year with the program.
Smith leaves Louisiana Tech having a very similar college career to alumnus and NFL Hall of Famer, Terry Bradshaw — one that includes winning a bowl game all four years he was on the team and being the recipient of the Conference USA Offensive Player of the Year in 2019.
Smith excelled in the fast and powerful Louisiana Tech offense. He has a cannon for an arm, instinctively steps up into the pocket, and is versatile and athletic enough to handle different play types including the run-pass-option, standard zone-read option plays, or even just a basic and simple offensive formation.
Smith has the capabilities of being a fast learner and adapting to what is asked of him. This is a great low risk/high reward pickup for the Patriots this season.
The other undrafted rookie free agent quarterback that the Patriots agreed to bring in is Brian Lewerke out of Michigan State. Lewerke is 6’3 and 216 lbs, and he has played in 41 games — throwing 8,293 yards and 47 touchdown passes during his college career.
Lewerke is experienced and has earned MVP in two out of the three bowl games he has led the Spartans to. He leaves Michigan State as the school’s all-time leader in total yards from scrimmage.
Lewerke provides a unique and more modern style of quarterback play than what the Patriots currently have on their roster. He’s a more mobile and pass-option type of quarterback, which is something the Patriots aren’t so much accustomed to.
Lewerke was not part of a similar offensive system to New England’s in college, making the transition into the Patriots playbook a more challenging one to say the least. He was not under center a majority of the time and I believe that inexperience will be too much for him coming into the NFL.
When you put into consideration the way the draft panned out for the Patriots, they decided that they had bigger positional needs that had to be addressed before adding another quarterback.
At the conclusion of the NFL draft, Bill Belichick addressed his team’s quarterback situation and explained that they did have plans to draft a quarterback if the “right situation” presented itself … it just never apparently did. Here’s what he had to say, via ESPN’s Mike Reiss:
"“If we feel like we find the right situation, we’ll certainly draft them. We’ve drafted them in multiple years, multiple points in the draft. Didn’t work out last three days. That wasn’t by design. It could have, but it didn’t.”"
It’s fair to say that the team is thinking about the future and who might be their next franchise quarterback. All in all, the New England Patriots are in an obvious retooling process this offseason and are trying to establish a new direction to take the franchise in 2020.
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Both Smith and Lewerke are here to bring some added competition to the quarterback room for Stidham and Hoyer. With that being said, there is a solid chance that one of these undrafted rookie quarterbacks makes the team this year. If it came down to Smith or Lewerke, I would choose Smith because I think he is a more polished quarterback at this time.
For now, the Patriots will have four quarterbacks on their roster.