3 players the Patriots should have drafted in 2021 instead of Mac Jones

No. 3 - Patriots should have taken running back Javonte Williams

Another running back choice? Well, yes. The problem with the 2021 NFL draft is that while Mac Jones has turned out to be a lost boy, many of the other high draft picks - post-pick 13 when the Los Angeles Chargers took offensive lineman Rashawn Slater - did not pan out well either.

Only four players have made at least one Pro Bowl after Jones was taken. Two of those players are Amon-Ra St. Brown of the Lions and Talanoa Hufanga of the San Francisco 49ers. St. Brown was chosen in the fourth round, and Hufanga was in the fifth.

My point is that while the Patriots made a bad choice taking Mac Jones, many other teams also made bad choices. Or there just weren't a lot of quality players to choose from. Javonte Williams, though, is a quality player, and he fell to the Denver Broncos in round 2 at pick number 35. Poor Williams was chosen by a bad offensive team and deserved better, but he would have been right at home on the 2023 Patriots, too.

Williams can run the ball and is explosive, but he would have been a fantastic pick-up by New England because of his versatility. His catch-rate is 79.7 percent for his career, even though he played with a rotation of quarterbacks in 2021 and a downward-spiralling Russell Wilson the last two seasons.

Williams might not have been the workhorse that Najee Harris is, but imagine him in place of the current version of Ezekiel Elliott. Elliott was a once-great running back who is used up. Williams would have been fresh for the Patriots in 2023 and allowed the offense to be 3 points better. That might have won several games.

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