On Day 1 of the 2022 NFL Draft, Bill Belichick made a first-round pick that remains famous for all the wrong reasons.
After initially trading back with Kansas City from the 21st overall pick — where the Chiefs landed now superstar cornerback Trent McDuffie — Belichick and the Patriots shocked well-known draft gurus like Mel Kiper and Todd McShay by selecting guard Cole Strange of Chattanooga with pick No. 29 overall in the first round.
Never mind Kiper, who at the time called the pick a “huge reach” — Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay inadvertently skewered the Patriots during a joint press conference with GM Les Snead:
“Wow! Cole Strange just went! How about that?” McVay quipped. “And we wasted our time watching him, thinking he'd be at [pick] 104, maybe."
McVay quickly backtracked on those comments after aggregators helped the quote go viral, but unfortunately for the Patriots, history is on his side. After a pair of subpar seasons as New England’s starting left guard, Strange missed the majority of quarterback Drake Maye’s rookie season in 2024 due to a torn patellar tendon in his left knee.
Per reports coming out of Patriots training camp this past week, Strange’s outlook has gone from bad to worse under the new Mike Vrabel regime.
Cole Strange has fallen from former first-round pick to 53-man roster bubble in Foxboro
Despite the rocky start to his NFL career, Strange was expected to slot back in as New England’s starting left guard this offseason. But according to Greg Bedard of the Boston Sports Journal, the 27-year-old has noticeably fallen behind rookie Jared Wilson and backup Caeden Wallace — and is now working at a different position entirely.
“He's gone from the starter at left guard to third string at center,” Bedard wrote for BSJ. “There's still time for him to recover, but it needs to happen soon.”
It’s one thing to get beat out by a better player — Wilson has widely been viewed as New England’s best all-around offensive lineman in camp — it’s another to be working with the third team at center, a spot that still feels ripe for the taking despite the team signing former Minnesota Vikings first-rounder Garrett Bradbury in March.
As Bedard noted, there’s still plenty of time for Strange to pen his own narrative this summer. The Patriots haven’t even played their first preseason game yet.
But the punchlines will come in full force if Strange winds up on the outside looking in on cut-down day, and that appears to be very much on the table entering Week 3 of camp.