Patriots 7-Round Mock Draft 1.0: Building an Offense From Scratch

Round 6 (No. 181 Overall): Justin Eboigbe, EDGE/DL, Alabama

With a low hit rate in the late rounds, it's often helpful to double down on a position of need with the hopes that you've got a good shot of having at least one hit. And EDGE is a position where there's no such thing as too much depth, so there's also that nice little added upside of how much you stand to gain if both become NFL contributors.

Continuing that thread I mentioned earlier of "give me a guy with a clear strength in the late rounds" Justin Eboigbe has a definite strength.

PFF had him as the third-best run defender of all EDGE players in the 2023 season. And at 6-foot-5, 292 pounds? He's built exactly like you want a run defender.

His weakness, no doubt, is in his pass-rush arsenal, but he did still put up 7 sacks and 30 total pressures on the season — not bad marks at all for a guy who's top priority is to stop the run.

His size and skill-set also give him the versatility to play inside and outside, giving the defense some flexibility when it comes to personnel and assignments. Shifting him inside on passing down to get some extra speed on the edge is always going to be an option, and if he can improve that interior pass-rush ability he could really develop into a three-down defender.