New England Patriots: Day 3 draft selections make the grade
New England Patriots picks in the fifth through the seventh rounds and grades
The New England Patriots selected another linebacker, Cameron Mcgrone from Michigan in the fifth round of the NFL draft. Not much excitement there.
The Patriots have still not addressed their offensive line depth problems. And that is a substantial issue. This non-addressing of the offensive line is a major deficiency of this drafting operation.
They fail to recognize that the depth they have is illusory and may disappear after this or next year and there ain’t no one behind the starters who really can play.
This pick is a bewilderingly clear and likely disappointment to Mr. Kraft, or at least it should be so. He should be justifiably asking what the draft team is doing taking yet another linebacker?
Sorry, taking the best player available is fine with this writer, if, and only if, the team has taken a step or steps to shore up their obvious deficiencies, or at least attempted to do so.
The New England Patriots haven’t once again in 2021, at least not to the extent they should have. There are no guarantees in any of this draft business from the first to the last round, of course.
But, if you don’t even attempt to address those clear and present deficiencies, you are not doing the job expected. And they haven’t.
No offensive linemen signed in free agency (additional ones though they did trade for Trent Brown, a very good move) means no depth on the most important unit on the squad.
That’s a bad situation no matter how you look at it. This is an incremental grade lowering omission, once again.
In the sixth round, the Patriots selected Joshua Bledsoe, a safety from Missouri. Ho-hum. Nothing much there either. Just another camp body.
This team can find defensive backs in undrafted free agency. That draft pick was wasted on this position. A throw-away pick.
Last year with their sixth-round pick they took Michael Onwenu, a guard who turned out to be one of the best rookies in the entire NFL. Why not go offensive line earlier, here, later? Nothing.