Can The Patriots Hit On Anything In The Draft

By Steve Atkinson 

The NFL Draft is on Thursday, and once again, the Patriots have a high draft pick at number four. It appears that the team is targeting Will Campbell, an offensive tackle. While that’s a promising move, I have to say they haven’t been great at drafting in recent years—essentially since Belichick was still in charge. Could this year be different? Sure, but I’ll believe it when I see it. They still need a left tackle and some legitimate receivers—not players like Javon Baker, who probably won’t see the field in his first season.

Patriots Looking at Tackle in the Draft

If the Patriots do select Will Campbell from LSU with the fourth pick, it would finally address their long-standing need for a left tackle, a position they’ve neglected for years. Travis Hunter will likely be off the board by the time the Patriots are on the clock at number four. Last year, they chose Drake Maye, which was probably their best draft pick from that class. They were expected to draft a quarterback, so I suppose they deserve some credit for that. However, this draft class isn’t particularly strong at quarterback, and they don’t need one anyway.

This is what Vrabel said last week about the tackle position:

I think there’s some starting tackles that certainly will come in and start in the NFL. I think that that’s really what you start to look for, impact players. When you start picking that high, what they’re going to do for you, what’s the impact, what’s the position, you talk about premium positions. That’s where you weigh all the circumstances and end up making that pick. Do I think that there are starters in this draft that left tackle? Yes, I do

Can Ryan Cowden who’s Vrabel’s guy come in and help Wolf with the personal decisions when it comes to the draft? I hope so they do need it and really need to draft well and be able to develop players with good coaching. Last year the coaching was all over the place. They could’ve done the same thing Vrabel did this year for Mayo last year but here we are.

Vrabel was asked about drafting for need versus drafting the best available.

Well, we’d love for them to align, having a need and having the best player be there. That doesn’t always happen, and we certainly want to pick the best player as many times as we can and the player that we think at that point is the best player. Then we’ll figure it out. Maybe you look at one position and we may have some returning starters or we feel like are starters, or there’s depth at that position, but to add premium players when available is something that you should probably always try to do.

Last year with Drake Maye they drafted for need and best available with the third pick. This year the draft is more open to what’s the best option available. I doubt the Patriots trade up they’ll pick at 4 or trade down.