Well that's a cold splash of hardcore reality there, Mark.
One of the Patriots biggest needs in the off-season was a starting NFL caliber Left Tackle. Eliot Wolf whiffed just like Bill Belichick did, failing to get a quality player to join the team.
The Patriots did sign a former #1 pick and 6-year starter, Chukwu Okorafor, formally of the Pittsburgh Steelers. He lost his starting Right Tackle job to the player Pittsburgh acquired from the Patriots last year. The 2024 draft was loaded with good, NFL caliber Left Tackles. In my initial Mock Draft, I suggested that Left Tackle and not QB should have been the teams in #1 priority. Without that anchor at Left Tackle, I don’t care who you put at QB, they are not going to succeed.
The Patriots prioritized QB and WR ahead of LT. Wolf and staff were caught flat footed and unprepared to adjust to the run of Left Tackles and they ended up being caught in no-mans-land. They chose a player they really liked in Caeden Wallace, who got lost in the quality of Tackles that came out in this year’s draft and I think he is a very underrated Right Tackle.
However, they are Right Tackles trying to make the switch. Okorafor has already stated in an OTA interview how hard it is to switch sides. He has 6 years’ experience but has never t the year on played the Left Side, the blind side of a Right-Handed QB. Wallace is extremely confident that he can make the switch but in his 5 years at Penn State he only played on the right side.
Michael Onwenu tried to make the switch to Left Guard and failed miserably. Onwenu is strictly a right sided player. Now with Cole Strange’s absence due to lingering problems from his knee injury last year, we are going to need another player on the Left Side.