As the No. 21 pick loomed, Bill Belichick appeared to have the pick of the defensive litter. But when the dust settled after the New England Patriots traded all the way back to No. 29, he may have simply picked … litter.
Not quite the same level of excitement as last season’s Mac Jones selection, huh?
Just a few seconds after initial rumors claimed New England was about to nab Trent McDuffie for their defensive backfield, it turned out Belichick had pulled off his favorite kind of coup and moved from 21 to the 29th selection, leaving McDuffie for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Why did the Chiefs feel the need to leap the competition for a defensive back, gifting the Patriots a few extra assets from their Tyreek Hill trade? Er … next question. But after the frantic swap, Belichick still had seven picks to survive and tons of prototypical defensive options still on the board.
He opted for a Tennessee-Chattanooga OL (center/tackle/announced as a guard on draft night) Cole Strange. Some ranked him inside the top 100! Some did. Some didn’t. A first round is only 32 picks long.
You can trust Belichick while still raising your eyebrows, especially considering the talented defensive names (and rumored Patriots connections!) that were all selected in that sweet spot between where the team should’ve selected and where they actually strode to the podium.
Why did the Patriots pass on these 3 defensive prospects for Cole Strange?!
3. Quay Walker
What happened overnight?! On Wednesday, we heard Walker “wouldn’t get past” New England at No. 21. On Thursday, he was available at 21 .. which the Patriots traded out of, allowing the Green Bay Packers to add Walker at 22!
An objectively infuriating development, even if you weren’t a Walker fan and just hated being lied to via logistical failures.
Never mind that the rangy linebacker posted the fourth-fastest 40 time of all 2022 linebacker prospects at this year’s Combine. Never mind his elite size, specifically his 96th percentile wingspan. Never mind his National Champion pedigree. Apparently, the holes in his coverage ability were enough for Belichick to let him slide on by and ignore his crush like a flighty eighth-grader.
For the stars to align and place Walker at 21, just as the prophecy foretold, only for the Patriots to shirk the “McDuffie vs Walker” debate altogether and go mid-tier offensive lineman with their first pick instead? Only in New England will anyone believe this’ll work.
2. Jermaine Johnson
Again, Pats Nation was presented with a classic Patriots scenario developing late Thursday.
Sure, Walker had been swiped. The Packers, not the Pats, had queued up for Quay. All the while, though, a different national nightmare scenario was developing.
What does America hate more than the Patriots getting the player they’d targeted atop the board? The Patriots watching a top-10 talent slip all the way to their cozy spot at the back of the first round, which happened as Florida State pass rusher Jermaine Johnson silently slid down the draft board.
Around the mid-20s, the world realized what had happened. And seconds later, a team slid in and scooped him up. Not just any team, either. The AFC East’s most annoying bottom-feeders, the New York Jets, added Johnson after swapping picks with the Tennessee Titans at 26.
That’s after selecting Sauce Gardner and Garrett Wilson at 4 and 10, of course. Three top-10 talents on the Jets, the third coming at the tail end of the first round?! And with Belichick waiting at the altar, too, ready to pounce on some supposed character and motor concerns to nab a game-breaker.
How did the Jets win Thursday night’s first round while the Patriots selected an FCS offensive lineman? Is this the Multiverse?
1. Devin Lloyd
Then, there was Devin Lloyd out of Utah, one of the most-mocked linebackers to the Patriots who was readily available at 27.
The Jacksonville Jaguars were acutely aware of that fact, trading back into the first round to leapfrog New England and add him to their swarming defense.
Was this Belichick’s initial intention at 29? Did the Jaguars jump ahead of New England for good reason? Or did they just see talent slipping, while Belichick was content to go in a far stranger direction?
Turns out, the grand debate over whether the Patriots should opt for Lloyd over Nakobe Dean was a red herring. Bizarrely, Dean is still on the board, and the Pats could even trade up in the second round to make some magic happen, if they so desire.
That’s not how this franchise operates, though, an ethos underscored once again when they went off everyone’s board (except Nike the Dog’s) and chose a project for the offensive line rather than reinforce the defense in any capacity.
Perhaps Belichick isn’t a believer in this roster, as constructed, and decided to make Mac Jones’ Year 2 a link in a much longer chain instead of a leap forward. But Lloyd, who can be a versatile off-ball linebacker and can mimic an EDGE, earned the Jaguars universal praise at 27. The Jaguars!
The Patriots? They earned nothing but befuddlement, and they worked HARD for that befuddlement, dammit! Even among projected Patriots reaches, this was an unforeseen reach.
Need hope? A similar head-scratcher worked for the Boston Red Sox just two years ago, when they selected unknown infielder Nick Yorke in the first round, only to watch him fulfill the promise they’d imagined almost immediately. But the Red Sox aren’t managed by a 70+-year-old legend who might decide to leave the day-to-day grind any minute now. Every Patriots season is precious, and this one is off to a wild start.
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