New England Patriots: 5 surefire predictions for 2021 NFL Draft

5. The New England Patriots will not draft anyone you hope they will

This is almost a guaranteed, take-it-to-the-bank, bet the farm, mortgage the house, cash in your insurance policies, cash out your retirement, etc. accounts lock. They won’t but (and this caveat must be noted), sometimes, just sometimes, admittedly they actually do.

Case-in-point, Chase Winovich was a player whom I really liked and they actually drafted him. An exception that proves the rule. This was indeed a “Kodak moment”. (For young persons that was a commercial slogan for an old camera that took instant photos. Sorry.)

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I also loved the Michael Onwenu pick but not sure I had him on the radar until after the pick when I subsequently saw his East-West Shrine game performance. He would have been another if I had seen it before the draft most likely, so I have to give an asterisk* of credit there. And, if they take guard Deonte Brown from Alabama anywhere in the draft, they have to get a Seal of Approval”. Hope they do!

So that’s the list of absolute locks for the 2021 Patriots draft, not mocked players but tactics that the blue, silver, red, and white will most likely employ in late April and early May. (Note: I don’t ever remember a draft slipping into May before. Maybe a first.)

So it’s on to the players now, the mock drafts (yes, I’ll get my draft magazines, etc., have to) and onto suggesting players the New England Patriots should draft whom they won’t select, as usual.

But, that’s New England Patriots football.

And, yet, with all that business noted above, somehow, someway (probably mostly through the great work of Dick Rehbein, a coach at the time with the Patriots) they managed to snag the best quarterback and the best player in NFL history in the sixth round in 2000.

That wasn’t too bad of a pick. And the rest, as they say, is history. History, indeed.

So, yes, I’ll get the magazines, do the research, look for players whom I’d like to see the Patriots select, and then be disappointed as I am just about annually. But that’s the draft and you have to love it or not. For whatever reasons, I always have.