The NFL is a quarterback-driven league. And with the No. 3 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, the New England Patriots are guaranteed a top quarterback prospect in either USC's Caleb Williams, UNC's Drake Maye or LSU's Jayden Daniels.
No brainer, right? Not if you ask our Patriots Insider Tom E. Curran.
Curran has advocated strongly for New England to trade down from the No. 3 pick, stockpile draft assets and use those to address the team's many roster needs before investing in a franchise QB. In most cases, Curran argues, the "situation" sets the QB up for success, and not vice versa, so the Patriots would be setting a rookie QB up to fail in an offense that was one of the NFL's worst in 2023.
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On a new episode of the Patriots Talk Podcast, Curran brought evidence to drive home his argument.
🔊 Patriots Talk: Does the situation make the QB work or vice versa? | Listen & Subscribe | Watch on YouTube
"Do you know how many quarterbacks in the 58-year history of the Super Bowl have won (a championship)?" Curran asked co-host Phil Perry. "There's only 34 of them. And ESPN did a story (in 2020) that said 721 quarterbacks had started a game in the NFL at that juncture. More than that have started now, so basically 4 percent -- 34 out of 750 or so -- have won the Super Bowl."
Curran's point? The odds of a team hitting on a QB who will go on to win a Super Bowl are very, very low.
"You can't pick a guy and say, 'We're going to win a Super Bowl with him,'" Curran said. "Every team is looking for a guy they can win a Super Bowl with. You know who isn't a guy you can win a Super Bowl with? So far, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert -- they haven't even played in one.
"... My point is, you can say that you want that, but there's not some chromosome that 34 guys have and nobody else did. These are situations, not unicorns. Situations win Super Bowls. John Elway might be the most talented quarterback in the history of the league. He didn't win a Super Bowl until his situation came around and met his skill level, which had actually declined."
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The Patriots' current offensive "situation" is rather bleak: They have a first-year head coach (Jerod Mayo), a first-year de facto general manager (Eliot Wolf), zero starting-caliber offensive tackles or tight ends under contract and one of the NFL's least explosive wide receiver rooms. They can address some of those needs in free agency with their $88 million in cap space (second-most in the NFL), but the overhaul won't happen overnight.
That's why Curran wants the Patriots to trade down from No. 3, shore up those offensive positions with their extra draft capital, and then pursue a QB who would have a higher chance of succeeding in a more established system.
Also in this episode:
- Is Mac Jones more of a finished product than Drake Maye?
- Trade down if Drake Maye is your option at No. 3?
- Ranking the Patriots’ offseason position priorities