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20 Under 25: With Patriots’ young core, it’s ‘Drake Maye, then pray’ originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Why do we do this “20 Under 25” voting exercise every year?
Well, yeah … you’re right. Content. But why this content? Simple. We, as interested sports observers, love forecasting.
Consider: Despite the reality that only about 20 players from each NFL Draft class wind up being objectively good, there’s a billion-dollar industry (at least) that’s grown up around it. Because we want to know who’s next AND we want to do our own projection and analysis as well. Because God knows we could ALL do it as well as these GMs with a week of research and a draft catalog.
This series looks at who’s already here and analyzes how good they’ll get. Will they be part of championships and remembered forever? Or are they just passing through?
The Patriots currently have 10 players under 25 years old on their roster. I would love to tell you that prosperity is just around the corner. It ain’t.
Precisely two of the players — Drake Maye and Christian Gonzalez — look like they have Pro Bowl-level aspirations.
Sadly, that constitutes an avalanche of success relative to past years. Prior to getting Maye this year and Gonzalez in 2023 (17th pick), the last homegrown player selected for the Pro Bowl was punter Jake Bailey. Other than that (I’m not counting Mac Jones getting in as an alternate), the only others in the past 12 years were J.C. Jackson, Malcolm Butler, Chandler Jones and Dont’a Hightower.
The draft drought of the past decade-plus in Foxboro has dropped New England to the dregs of the league. They’ve fallen. And they can’t get up.
For the first time since the 1960s, the Patriots may go an entire decade without being in a Super Bowl (80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s) or building one of the most talented teams in the NFL (70s).
Can Drake Maye haul them up by the scruff of their collective neck? Probably not. Consider, when the Patriots got good in Bill…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/20-under-25-patriots-young-165420328.html
Author : NBC Sports Boston
Publish date : 2024-12-02 16:54:00
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