Patriots 2021 Offseason Thread

It's looking more like either the Patriots trade up to grab Justin Fields, or the Pats grab Mac Jones if he's still around at 15 or the Pats grab a top notch receiver like Smith at 15 if both Fields and Jones are gone and grab Trask in a lower round to QB.

See this happens every year to me with the Pats draft I get the fever and this year its the 15th pick wow!. But I hope with the free agency they had the draft is just as exciting. All the other years Bill takes the fun out of the draft.


I feel Bill devaules the picks, based on his ability to find un drafted starters. Especially when he found Malcom Butler,a starting corner undrafted. He feels he can work the board as he sees fit and it bite him back the last few years. Just a theory.

Sounds like they like Fields a lot, enough to potentially trade up for him, but then again there can be misinformation being spread.

All I know is that Bill has been notorious in his trading down for quantity except that he made several moves in the free agent period to justify standing pat and choosing Micah Parsons (if he is still there).For him to trade up has not been his style. My guess is he will either stand pat or trade down.

All I know is that Bill has been notorious in his drafting of safeties with a sixth round grade in the second round.

I feel like it’s important to note that Watson can be all the good things people said and a creep all at once. He’s a person, we are complicated. He can be a great leader, a great teammate, philanthropic, great in the community and have this other dark part of his life that’s either pure evil or something lessor that was a fetish that entitlement or whatever else caused to spiral out of control. People don’t fit into boxes or categories nearly, but we try to do it because it’s easier for us.

I wouldn't be surprised if he moved up a few spots to take Parsons if he drops and the Qb's are all gone. Once the Qb's are gone I think the cost to move up will go down as there is always a premium on them. I think Parsons is going to be that good that it's worth an extra pick to go up.

At what point does it make sense to bid high in free agency on a veteran QB that has proven his value rather than paying the cost in draft capitol to get one that has a good chance of being a bust? I know in the past the good ones didn't hit the market all that often but that has been changing recently. This is something I have always wondered from afar as the Pats have been all set for so long but the strategy of trying to get THAT QB via the draft seems to be what has held so many teams back for years. They spend top picks on QB's yr after yr that don't pan out and are relegated to losing seasons. It used to be a lot worse when they paid those guys big bucks on top of the top picks, teams were doomed by the likes of Jamarcus Russell. 

I’m by no means an expert on all these cases but from what I’ve seen he didn’t “force” himself on anyone so I’d have to guess it started out as one thing and slowly grew as he pushed some boundaries and he probably did it in a way that he tricked himself into thinking he wasn’t doing anything wrong or overly wrong. I know that sounds like I’m excusing his behavior as ok, but I’m not. It’s wrong, I’m just trying to explain how it’s plausible an otherwise good even noble person goes down a path like this.

So I’ve been using mock draft sims for PFF, TDN and PFN and it’s crazy how different their player rankings can be. I love it and i love how unpredictable this draft will be. Some of it is COVID but I’m hoping most of it is just we have more independent scouting now and less consensus group think.

Great article from Howe on picking a QB (generally and specific to the Pats) via The Athletic ($). One thing that stood out:

I think you need to go do a little more research, multiple women claim he forced them into sexual acts. The whole thing with every women is Watson trying to force himself on these women. He treats them like they are sex workers.

You can say he's things like a good leader, etc, you can't say he's noble or has good character or even a good person unless you think all these women are just lying and making things up. Yet the SI investigation turned up women that haven't filed that backed up the same story.

These weren't women that came onto him like in a bar or at the club, he targeted women based off of looks. He was preying off of women trying to have a career in a legit business. I'd almost buy what you're saying if he did the same thing across the board. Yet you seem to have the way he acted with professionals that were licensed versus the unlicenced ones he targeted. Which shows he knew exactly what he was doing.

Yes his name is J.C. Jackson, he's the next great CB in my opinion.

Williams isn't Dawson because they actually play him. Outside of that it's crazy hard to tell because he's had so many good CBs above him. It's his make or break year because the third CB slot is currently open.

I'll talk about Bryant because he actually played, Michael Jackson basically didn't. Bryant is small and slow, yet good three cone time. So he could be a decent slot guy. Which we could need given how teams are starting to pick on Jonthan Jones. I don't know how Jones still has a good PFF grade, when he's allowing 65% completion percentage. He gets beat deep all the time even though he's crazy fast, yet he has a horrible 3 cone time which likely explains it. Back to Bryant I don't see how he's great given his size and 4.62 40 time in today's NFL.

It's why I'm targeting taking two CBs given how great this class is.