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Patriots can jump-start their rebuild by trading down from No. 3 originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The best way for a bottom-feeding team to get good players? Force them to come. How do you do that? You draft them.
The Patriots are a bottom-feeder. If you don’t have a quarterback, left tackle or decent receivers but you DO have the No. 3 overall pick, that makes you a bottom-feeder.
This week has been a referendum on how hard it is for an unimposing team to build through free agency.
Calvin Ridley, a very good wide receiver who’s about the 15th-best in the league at his position, turned his nose up to the New England Patriots. He chose to go to Tennessee to play for a first-year coach on a team without an established quarterback for four years and $92 million with $50 million guaranteed. If he didn’t go to the Titans, he may have stayed in Jacksonville, where the situation is more stable and the cost of living is much cheaper.
The Patriots have been – from the outside looking in – watching the paint dry as potential hole-fillers like wideout Marquise Brown and left tackle Jonah Williams signed with Kansas City and Arizona, respectively.
It’s time for New England to put a huge “FOR SALE” sign on the third overall pick and start looking for buyers. And the most obvious buyer stepped to the front of the line Friday when the Vikings dealt for a second first-round pick.
In a draft that’s heavy on top-end wideouts and tackles, the Patriots can trade down and take 11th and 23rd picks off the Vikings’ hands IN ADDITION TO first- and third-round picks in 2025, which is what Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio suggested Friday. The Patriots then take a tackle and wideout (or vice versa) at 11 and 23, and with two firsts next year — both of which will likely be in the top half of the first round — you have mobility to move up and get the best quarterback if you want.
Then you’d have a left tackle, top-tier wideout and quarterback on rookie contracts…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/patriots-jump-start-rebuild-trading-195008172.html
Author : NBC Sports Boston
Publish date : 2024-03-15 19:50:08
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