Not all NFL Drafts are created equal for all teams.
Sure, drafting is the lifeblood of any organization’s path to success.
Hit homeruns with spring selections and it can jumpstart a run of fall winning.
Conversely, strike out on draft weekend and a team will play catch-up in the team-building process for years to come.
Bill Belichick’s Patriots have been a local example of each scenario over the last two decades.
But not since 2001 – and arguably not since 1993 – has New England headed into a draft with so much intrigue, so much opportunity and, by extension, so much risk.
Little more than three days from now, armed with the No.
15 overall pick that’s his highest since 2008 and an obvious need at the quarterback position, Belichick’s Patriots are about to embark on the 2021 NFL Draft and a fork in the post-Tom Brady road for the franchise.
That’s not an exaggeration.
Coming off a 7-9 season and in the midst of an offseason of free spending free agency retooling, maybe this draft isn’t quite tantamount to when Bill Parcells’ Patriots picked between Washington State’s Drew Bledsoe and Notre Dame’s Rick Mirer nearly three decades ago at the No. 1 overall pick very much earned by the 2-14 season a few months earlier.
But it certainly ranks up there with Belichick’s own previous most crucial draft in Foxborough back in 2001 when New England held the No. 6 overall pick coming off a 5-11 campaign looking to rebuild a lackluster roster on both sides of the ball with the controversial selection of Georgia DT Richard Seymour.
What do both those Aprils have in common? Success.
Bledsoe was the right pick, becoming the franchise QB pillar in New England, helping the team to the Super Bowl a few years later.
Likewise Seymour brought immediate impact to the Patriots defensive as a key cog on a surprise Super Bowl team as a rookie and a mainstay on the front throughout the early stages of the budding New England dynasty.
Robert Kraft’s squad should be so fortunate to find such repeat success this coming Thursday night.
What Belichick does this week – and by extension the rest of the New England personnel department made up of a “heavily involved” Matt Patricia as well as Dave Ziegler, Eliot Wolf and Matt Groh, who have “carried the ball” through the pre-draft process – could very well decide the short and relative long-term future of the Patriots.
By all accounts, there are five quarterbacks available expected to go in the first round of the draft. If Belichick so values any of the players – Alabama’s Mac Jones, North Dakota State’s Trey Lance and Ohio State’s Justin Fields could all be realistic options, depending on which pre-draft reports you believe and what the 49ers do at No. 3 overall -- who could slip into striking distance or even the position itself that his boss, Kraft, said recently needs to be “solidified,” the opportunity will be there.
Pick the right quarterback and the future is bright, especially given all that’s been invested in the rest of the roster this offseason.
But…
Take the wrong quarterback, and it will set the search back years and waste assets that could have been used elsewhere.
Welcome to the world without a franchise QB, a world so many other NFL teams live through annually yet one New England hasn’t dealt with since 1993.
The Patriots need a quarterback.
Seemingly worthy quarterbacks are available.
But that doesn’t mean it’s a simple match made in football heaven.
It’s not like QB or not to QB is the only question Belichick and the rest will face this week.
There are other options. The pieces and potential trades may not fall into place in a way that allows New England to snag a passer that it truly desires and believes in. Only the Jaguars truly control there draft day destiny as they land their own franchise QB in Trevor Lawrence.
And while leaving the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft without a quarterback might feel like a lost opportunity and an overall L for many in Patriot Nation – hand raised! – it doesn’t necessarily mean the draft won’t be a success.
As much as we all may want to snag a QB, hell as much as Kraft, Belichick and Co. may want to snag QB, the only thing worse than not having a quarterback is investing heavily in the wrong one.
Belichick could still find relative draft success without picking the next Bledsoe, the next franchise passer for the Foxborough Faithful, although that could make for a longer, more difficult road back to Kraft’s spoken goal of contending annually for Super Bowls.
Maybe it’s a would-be Pro Bowl linebacker like Micah Parsons. Or a future stud No. 1 cornerback such as Jaycee Horn.
It’s not a binary decision. But it is a binding one, a choice that will have lasting effects at Gillette in oh so many ways.
Make no mistake, Belichick indeed is in the spotlight on Thursday night in the most critical, interesting draft seen in New England in decades. As Kraft rightfully assessed, the Patriots have not “done the greatest job the last few years” on draft weekend.
That simply can’t continue.
This isn’t just another draft.
Belichick and the Patriots are literally and figuratively on the clock.
