Mock drafts on the New England Patriots and all other NFL teams abound in draft season. With the draft just a couple of weeks away, major outlets are throwing their hats into the mock ring along with local observers.
One outlet, CBS Sports, has issued a recent mock draft that has the Patriots taking an interesting path. Jordan Dajani has the team trading down from their No. 31 pick, ostensibly for additional draft capital.
The idea of a trade down hasn't been floated much in Patriots circles this year. The team has multifarious needs that seem to be growing with each passing week as 2025 players are broomed to make room for new and hopefully better ones for 2026.
The Patriots entered the 2026 offseason with several defined needs, including multiple additions on the offensive line and edge. Others were at tight end, running back, and linebacker. Since then, they have cut ties with their top receiver, Stefon Diggs, making wide receiver another priority.
Unfortunately, these needs haven't been filled very successfully in free agency, and now the draft and maybe trades are the sole realistic avenues left.
Does trading down for additional pick(s) make sense for the Patriots?
Getting the best possible players to improve your team is always the most important offseason priority of well-run NFL teams. That theory was both espoused and carried out with amazing efficacy by Mike Vrabel and the Patriots' personnel staff in the 2025 offseason.
In both free agency and the draft, they added many players who were upgrades over their 2024 counterparts and who, for the most part, contributed to their Super Bowl run. 2026's free agency has not been so successful.
Now, Dajani has mocked the Patriots trading their first-round pick in a rather controversial deal to the LA Rams.
"The Patriots allow the Rams to jump in front of their NFC West rivals in Seattle to grab who Sean McVay hopes is his quarterback of the future in Ty Simpson. The Alabama product was a one-year starter who's not ready to play right away but flashed his NFL potential early in the season.
Simpson being selected in the first round gives the Rams another year of control with the fifth-year option. I can't imagine a better mentor than Matthew Stafford, so I'm hoping for this potential marriage over teams like the Cardinals, Steelers or Browns."
Dajani doesn't speculate on what compensation would be coming back to the Patriots. Presumably, it will include at least the Rams' picks No. 62 in Round 2 and 93 in Round 3. Anything less would be a fleecing of Mike Vrabel and company by Sean McVay. The two added picks would then give the Patriots two picks in each of the second, third, and fourth rounds. That's not a bad scenario.
In Dajani's mock draft, one major factor does mitigate in favor of the Patriots trading down. It's the fact that all of the top offensive tackles, the team's most urgent need, are off the board at pick No. 31.
Had any of the top ones been there, the play was to take him as the immediate swing backup tackle to Will Campbell, who was injured in 2025, and 35-year-old Morgan Moses, who's nearing the end-of-the-line in his wonderful NFL career.
The Patriots had two overarching needs entering the 2026 offseason. They both centered on sacks. They first needed to reduce the horrendous number of sacks on quarterback Drake Maye. Additionally, they needed to add edge players capable of generating more sacks. Neither was accomplished in free agency.
Now, it's incumbent on Vrabel and the personnel staff to get that done either by trades or the draft. Whatever path they choose, those are indisputable requirements.
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