Coming off a promising season with rookie quarterback Drake Maye, along with the recent hiring of Mike Vrabel, the New England Patriots are clearly facing a pivotal offseason.
This is a team with a lot of holes to fill, with offensive tackle and wide receiver clearly being two of the most notable ones that everyone is hoping looks a little better on paper by the time September eventually gets here.
Last season saw the team fail to find any continuity along an offensive line that struggled all the way through to the end of the season. Left tackle was a problem all year long, with the team unable to find a top-flight player among the 2024 Patriots free agents they signed. They ended up settling on Chukwuma Okorafor, who couldn’t make the transition and tapped out and left the team early in the season.
From there, it was Vederian Lowe, who is a swing tackle and did about as best as you could have expected on the left side. It also didn’t help that third-round pick Caedan Wallace, who was drafted as a right tackle out of Penn State and considered to potentially be a developmental left tackle, went down with an injury.
That left an already thin group also forced to sift through options on the right side after Mike Onwenu couldn’t hold things down after he shifted back out again as he did in 2023 from right guard. They ultimately found Demontrey Jacobs, who again, is a guy who can step in for an injured player but certainly isn’t a true NFL starter by any means.
Meanwhile, the club also didn’t find anyone of note at receiver in free agency. After getting shunned by Calvin Ridley, and walking away from a trade attempt of San Francisco wideout Brandon Aiyuk, the Patriots weren’t able to add the impact player they were likely looking for. During free agency, they ultimately settled on former Vikings wideout K.J. Osborn along with re-signing Jalen Raeger and Kendrick Bourne. As the team started losing games, New England shifted its focus toward its younger players, with the snaps being taken away from both Osborn and Raeger and given to Demario Douglas, rookie Ja’Lynn Polk, and Kayshon Boutte.
That led to both Osborn and Raeger seeing their tenures end, with the focus instead shifting toward giving those snaps to their younger group of pass catchers and building toward the future.
They’re now essentially back where they started, albeit Wallace remains a wild card given the fact he’s shown some positive signs but simply missed the year to injury. But the Patriots absolutely still need significant help at both position groups and the NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, who appeared on Felger and Massarotti on 98.5 The Sports Hub on Tuesday, says the Patriots will absolutely be active in the coming weeks.
“I would just say I would anticipate that they are very active,” said Pelissero. “And I know that Elliott Wolf was working it on every receiver. It didn’t work out last year, but whether it was Calvin Ridley or Brandon Aiyuk or other guys that came up, they were in on everything.”
One key difference between this year and last year is the fact the Patriots now at least have what people outside New England feel is a viable option at quarterback, which is a stark contrast to where they were last March. They headed into that previous period with just Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe, and had also lost Bill Belichick.
As a result, the impression of this team by potential free agent candidates certainly didn’t feel favorable, given the fact they had a ton of cash and seemingly no one who wanted to take it.
Granted, Pelissero feels the Patriots may still have to potentially overpay to get their guy, but he feels they’re definitely facing less of an uphill battle than they were a year ago.
“Listen, it’s hard when you’re bad, and people didn’t know if the quarterback was going to be any good,” said Pelissero. “The good news this year is you’re still bad, but people now know this quarterback is good.”
“Are the Patriots going to have to overpay in free agency? Probably. That’s just the nature of it. But you’re going to have a much better selling point that, ‘Hey, we’re going to pay you a little extra, and you get to play with this dude who, if we can just make this thing competent, has a chance to be really, really good.'”
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
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People seem to forget what happened the last time the Pats overspent in free agency. For that matter, what happens to almost every team who overspends in free agency. Much more miss than hit. Spend your money wisely. Building depth throughout the team with young and promising players would be much more prudent than overspending on aging and injury prone veterans to fill immediate needs, which still, or soon, will be needs again.