Following the Patriots selecting Mac Jones No. 15 overall in the NFL Draft, some believed the team wasn't fully into the player as otherwise they would have traded up for him.
The counter to that was they correctly read the draft board, and why should they have traded up when they didn't need to?
Appearing on The Greg Hill Show Wednesday, NFL Media's Ian Rapoport explained that's exactly what happened.
“They didn’t trade up because I believe, obviously the Patriots have pretty good information, they knew they didn’t need to," he said. "And obviously they were right. I know the Vikings (No. 14 overall) had some interest in Justin Fields … and once he was gone everyone knew the Vikings were going to bail because they were making calls to teams behind them to possibly move back, right. The Vikings were looking at quarterback a little bit and then ended up moving back. Once that happened, the Patriots knew no one else was coming up for Mac Jones. To them it was really more of a value, like, ‘Why would we move up if we clearly don’t have to. We’re just going to wait.’ And if they missed him, it would be a poorly calculated gamble, but they didn’t. They got him. So to me, that is just the Patriots having really good information and [predicting] the draft board falling as it did.
"I know Mac was someone Bill Belichick was interested in, that the Patriots were interested in. I know they liked him. I know at the very worst they believe Andy Dalton is sort of the floor, which Andy Dalton was a starter who led his team to the playoff for five years. Say whatever you want, but like he was a better than average quarterback for awhile. He wasn’t someone they were going to leap up for.”
Jones continues to make progress each and every day with the Patriots this offseason.