The 2024 Patriots made just one good decision during the offseason, with the one highlight being brushing off suggestions from many sources to trade down and not take Drake Maye. They took him, and it was a great pick.
Later, the team made an odd decision, using another draft pick to select a second rookie QB in the sixth round, Joe Milton III. When you've invested the third overall pick in the NFL draft, a commodity of immense value and an investment of monumental proportions, why would you draft any other quarterback later?
That questionable decision was further complicated by the earlier investment quarterback, Jacoby Brissett, who was glued to the roster because of his contract. Neither of those quarterback acquisitions made any sense. Let's explore why.
The Patriots should never have signed Jacoby Brissett
The Patriots personnel head, Eliot Wolf, signed Brisset to that big free-agent contract. He knew that with the third pick overall, without a long-term solution at the position, and with the draft having three bona fide top QBs available, he'd have to take one. If he had any doubt, owner Robert Kraft made it clear he wanted a young quarterback, presumably of the top three, to build around.
Despite that, Wolf still spent on Brissett, even though he knew that the third overall pick, no matter who he ultimately was, would have to play. That was mistake No. 1 in a series of gaffes that doomed the Patriots' 2024 season before it even began. Signing Brissett was a total blunder. Fortunately, Wolf drafted Maye, the remaining top three QBs, as Kraft had "suggested".
The Brissett signing initiated the downward spiral. Then, the team neglected the left tackle position, failed to add any capable wide receivers, and didn't give Maye (who'd "won" the quarterback competition in camp) any first-team repetitions until well into the season. All this ultimately led to the unraveling of the entire 2024 season.
Later in the draft, the Patriots administration made another dubious and, frankly, head-scratching addition to the roster with their sixth-round pick. They drafted another quarterback, Joe Milton III, from Tennessee, one with a cannon arm. The overarching strategy was flawed.
The Patriots' drafting Joe Milton III was a foolish, amateur mistake
Drafting Milton in 2024's sixth round was a decision made out of naivete and inexperience. The money spent on a Brisset made things even worse. Instead of investing those dollars in a left tackle or a capable wide receiver, they'd been used on a backup quarterback.
Then, the personnel administration, after making one of their only good off-season moves by drafting Maye, proceeded to foul things up again. They misused that sixth-round pick on another quarterback, determined not to play much, if at all. But those "football dynamics" were only part of the story.
Selecting Milton at that point was counter-productive. First, after signing Brissett to a big free-agent contract, they'd be pressured to use him. Then, they'd invested even more in the third pick in the draft on a quarterback, who should have been the presumptive starter from Day One. The blunders were piling up.
They started Brissett to begin the season, but he ultimately proved to be what he was: a backup quarterback. They moved to Maye in game five. Unfortunately, it was too late to make a difference in a season already spiraling nicely into last place in the AFC East. Then, in a meaningless game 17, Milton played well against the Bills' second and third-stringers.
Expectedly, media speculation abounded about Milton. He looked great, driving up speculation about potentially looking like a starter in the league. The bottom line is that the 2024 Patriots administration botched the entire quarterback situation absent drafting Drake Maye.
In 2024, the Patriots used too much cap space on Brissett and threw away a draft pick on Joe Milton III (who they've now traded). They sat Drake Maye, who gave them the best chance to win, until the season was toast. The lesson for 2025 from this fiasco is this: Don't draft a quarterback this season. Drake Maye is the Patriots' quarterback.