Patriots Draft Class ’23: Grades and thoughts on Day 3 selections

New England Patriots go heavy on guards in the fourth round

With their second fourth-round pick, the team went outside the box with their selection and took kicker Chad Ryland from Maryland. Ryland was looked at as a top kicker in the draft and he was the second one selected.

Drafting a kicker this early is always questionable, not that the Patriots don’t need a top kicker. They need a strong leg on kickoffs and an accurate field goal kicker. The question is when should they have addressed the position? It was later or in undrafted free agency.

This appears to be a panic reach of sorts and that pick could have been used more effectively on other positions of need.

On pick 117 of the fourth round, the team drafted a guard, Sidy Sow from Eastern Michigan. Sow is a huge guard at 6’5″ tall and 323 pounds.

While big guards are a favorite here, the Patriot’s need for offensive tackles is higher and they went in the wrong direction here again. This will be a familiar theme throughout Day three.

The New England Patriots next pick came in the fifth round and they once again went back to the guard trough and selected Antonio Mafi, another huge guard from UCLA.

Mafi is 6’3″ and 338 pounds and adds to an interior of the offensive line that was poor in any meaningful depth after they traded Shaq Mason last offseason and lost Ted Karras to free agency.

Bleacherreport.com again had the player listed as a sixth or seventh-round talent. He was another reach at a position that seemed to already be fairly well-fortified.