2 biggest Patriots 2024 NFL Draft mistakes

After the Patriots drafted Maye, they were widely expected to target either a wide receiver or offensive lineman with their next pick, which was the 34th overall selection. New England traded down to the 37th overall pick with the Los Angeles Chargers, and ended up selecting Washington wide receiver Ja’Lynn Polk with the pick.

Polk is a talented prospect, and he likely will be expected to make an immediate impact with New England. The problem is that this selection was believed to be a bit of a reach, as Polk was viewed as a late second round/early third round pick. Instead, he ended up going very early in the second round, and it left a lot of folks rather confused.

Simply put, the Patriots were not aggressive enough when it came to trying to land their preferred wide receiver. There were tons of talented options available early in the second-round, but New England ended up settling for Polk, who they probably could have gotten later in the round if they really wanted.

Further proving this point is that reports came out suggesting that New England tried to trade back into the first round with the Buffalo Bills for the 32nd overall pick. The Bills front office didn’t want to strengthen their division rival (despite the fact they gifted the Kansas City Chiefs Xavier Worthy just a few picks earlier) and turned down the Pats offer in favor of the Carolina Panthers offer, despite the reports suggesting that the Patriots offer was better than the Panthers.

There’s nothing you can do about that, but it was certainly a tough pill to swallow to watch Carolina land Xavier Legette a few picks later than he was expected to come off the board. He was presumably the guy New England wanted, but instead, they took Polk a bit too early after trading down a mere three spots.

New England’s front office seemed to panic here after watching Legette and Keon Coleman, who was probably another top target of theirs, come off the board before they could pick again. They either should have made a more aggressive play to move up the board, or traded further back in the second round to accrue more draft capital. It was an all-around confusing sequence of moves by the Pats, and if Polk doesn’t pan out, you can bet that fans are going to make sure the team doesn’t forget their confusing work in the second-round here.

Patriots didn’t properly address the left tackle position

After New England drafted Polk, their next position of need was the offensive line, or more specifically, the left tackle position. And while the Pats simply stayed put and drafted at the 68th overall pick, they again reached on a player who wasn’t expected to get drafted until much later, while watching the guys they likely would have preferred to have picked come off the board before they had a chance to select them.

The guy New England probably had their eyes on was Kingsley Suamataia, as they spent a considerable amount of time scouting him ahead of the draft, and also brought him to town for a pre-draft visit. They could only watch, though, as the Chiefs once again traded up, this time to the 63rd pick, and selected him to protect Patrick Mahomes’ blindside.

There was a run on tackles during this time, as Blake Fisher, Roger Rosengarten, and Brandon Coleman all came off the board right before New England selected. That left them in a strange spot at the 68th pick, and they ended up heavily reaching on Penn State’s Caedan Wallace to come in and play left tackle for them.

Not only was Wallace billed as a fourth-round pick, but he also didn’t even play left tackle in college. He spent his time with the Nittany Lions playing at right tackle, but don’t worry, because the front office believes he can play left tackle. That’s not exactly a bet you want to make on a rookie who was drafted too high to begin with, but that’s where New England currently finds themselves.

Rather than potentially adding another actual left tackle later in the draft, the Pats used their first pick in the fourth-round on Layden Robinson, who is a guard and (you guessed it) a pretty massive reach, as he was expected to go in the fifth-round by many talent evaluators. Beyond that, New England also drafted a pair of guards in the 2023 NFL Draft, so this wasn’t exactly a big need for the team, which made it even more frustrating.

The Patriots addressed their needs, but it feels like they brought in players just to fulfill those needs, rather than aggressively looking to improve the team in the process. Maybe these three guys will pan out, but it was a lackluster body of work on the surface after drafting Maye. The value was off on all three of these picks, and the front office better hope they get some immediate results from these guys, or an already disgruntled fan base could be set to explode in 2024.