Even if Drake Maye ends up being the face of the franchise for the next 10 years, the 2024 draft class will likely go down as one of the worst classes in the history of the New England Patriots.
Round 1 Pick 3 - Drake Maye, QB
Round 2 Pick 37 - Ja’Lynn Polk, WR
Round 3 Pick 68 - Caedan Wallace, OL
Round 4 Pick 103 - Layden Robinson, OL
Round 4 Pick 110 - Javon Baker, WR
Round 6 Pick 180 - Marcellus Dial, DB
Round 6 Pick 193 - Joe Milton III, QB
Round 7 Pick 231 - Jaheim Bell, TE
Polk and Dial are both set to miss the entire 2025 season with injuries. Milton was traded earlier this year to Dallas. Both Bell and Robinson have already been released by the team. Baker’s performance this preseason has left much to be desired in a crowded wide receiver room. And with how little we were able to see of Wallace last season mixed with him changing positions this camp, it’s fair to wonder if the Penn State-product is a part of the long term plans for this organization.
That just leaves Maye, the lone in-house sophomore as he heads into the 2025 season.
“How difficult is it to compete when it looks like your [Week 1] roster will have only one player from the 2024 draft class?” WEEI’s Chris Curtis asked Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel on Monday during his second “Patriots Monday” appearance of the season. “Can you compete when you have one guy from an entire class last year?”
“Yes,” Vrabel said flatly.
“How difficult is that as an organization to overcome?” Curtis followed-up.
“I've never even looked at how difficult - it's hard to compete in this league,” said Vrabel. “So however the roster shakes out, it's going to be hard to compete. Whether we have 15 guys from a draft class or two or one or none, we'll have a roster. We'll try to figure out the best way to win each and every week, however that is with whoever we have, just like we've always done.”
While there are other holdovers in the front office, Patriots executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf is the lead remaining face of that bunch. He helped lead the draft room in 2024, despite not yet being officially named the de facto general manager of the team at that time. And even though he has previously said that he believes poor coaching had more to do with the lack of success of the 2024 class than lack of talent, he has since ultimately taken blame for the failures of that group.
“Last season, ultimately the roster was on me,” Wolf said at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis earlier this year. “We were 4-13. Just didn’t get enough done. Certainly the free agency class didn’t live up to our expectations, the draft class — it’s too soon to tell — but we were expecting a bigger impact from some of those guys, and we’re still hopeful that they’ll get to that point.”
Vrabel was asked on The Greg Hill Show on Monday if he takes these recent failures into consideration when trying to decide who will make decisions about his roster moving forward.
“No, I haven't looked at that one bit,” said Vrabel. “I haven't paid any attention to that. I've just tried to communicate with Ryan [Cowden] and Eliot. And they try to figure out who we need. That's been my focus.”
The official fate of the 2024 draft class will be coming very soon, as Tuesday marks the official league-wide deadline for teams to cut down their roster to 53 players in advance of Week 1.
As of publishing the Patriots have already released 15 players from the 91 they had on their roster heading into the final preseason game:
- TE Jaheim Bell
- RB Micah Bernard
- DT Philip Blidi
- CB Isaiah Bolden
- TE Cole Fotheringham
- WR Phil Lutz
- LB R.J. Moten
- DT Kyle Peko
- CB Jordan Polk
- LB Monty Rice
- OL Layden Robinson
- G Tyrese Robinson
- G Sidy Sow
- RB Shane Watts
- QB Ben Wooldridge
Stay locked in to WEEI and WEEI.com for all the latest on Patriots’ roster moves, and make sure you tune in to The Greg Hill Show each and every Monday during football season for their conversation with Vrabel.