Today - February 23, 2021 - is a big day for this thread to become more relevant. It's the first day of the period before the league year starts on 3-17 when teams can tag their FA's with the ridiculously expensive franchise tender or the more reasonable transition tender offer.
With so many QBs in a state of flux, teams and agents will be looking for FA-eligible QB starters or backups to be tagged early this year. That opens up the window to negotiate a multi-year deal with their own free agents. If nothing else it will pull several guys off the market and help the Patriots figure out where the best veteran or trade-up options might be.
Personally, I'd like to see the Patriots sign Mitch Trubisky at a reasonable number for a couple of years and draft a QB in the first three rounds to compete with Stidham and mature. Trubisky is a solid QB, a good locker room presence, and coachable. Selling out the way the Rams did for Stafford (Goff, 2 firsts and a 3rd) makes no sense to me. That's what it will take for any of the top five or six QB options. And the Patriots don't have a QB to trade.
The Patriots have many holes to fill and should use their relatively good draft position and $63 million in cap money to strengthen both sides of the ball. I think we'll be happy campers by the time OTAs come around. Hightower, Bolden, and Dan Vitale coming back from their opt-outs helps immediately. Add a big run stopper nose tackle with the 1st round pick, re-sign Lawrence Guy and John Simon, and the defense will be fine.
Thuney and Andrews are the offensive priorities as far as Patriots FAs go on offense. They should be able to re-sign both in the $20M range with Thuney getting a longer deal with better guarantees. I'd rather see them spend money on those guys than on one FA QB looking for $15M+.