The New England Patriots had a franchise-altering 2024 NFL Draft. The team added a ton of talent on offense, which has fans excited for the preseason to get here already. The NFL preseason has been in the news recently, with Roger Goodell making comments about it in multiple interviews throughout draft weekend. One player on the Patriots made his opinion of the situation known on social media.
“With all due respect you don’t need it cause you’re not suiting up and there’s a lot of veterans who don’t,” New England Patriots’ center David Andrews posted on social media. “But there’s a lot of young players and undrafted guys who need it to develop and prove they deserve a chance to play. But hell maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Roger Goodell recently appeared on The Pat McAfee Show and shared his thoughts on the possibility of expanding the NFL regular season. It appears his pitch includes eliminating a preseason game.
“I think we’re good at 17 now, but listen we’re looking on how to continue,” Goodell said. “I’m not a fan of the preseason, I don’t think we need preseason anymore. I don’t buy it, and I don’t think these guys (points to the crowd) buy it either. But the reality is I think I’d rather replace a preseason game with a regular season game any day.”
Reducing the preseason to expand the regular season is something that Goodell has already done in the past. The most recent CBA between the league and players expanded the regular season to 17 games and eliminated one week of the preseason.
The next time NFL players will not vote on another CBA until 2030.
Recapping the 2024 NFL Draft for the New England Patriots
The Patriots entered the 2024 NFL Draft with a handful of needs, including finding a franchise QB and adding reinforcements at wide receiver and on the offensive line.
The New England Patriots drafted the following players in the 2024 NFL Draft:
- Drake Maye – QB – First round (3rd overall)
- Ja’Lynn Polk – WR – Second round (37th overall)
- Caedan Wallace – T – Third round (68th overall)
- Layden Robinson – G – Fourth round (103rd overall)
- Javon Baker – WR – Fourth round (110th overall)
- Marcellas Dial – CB – Sixth round (180th overall)
- Joe Milton III – QB – Sixth round (193rd overall)
- Jaheim Bell – S – Seventh round (231st overall)
The Patriots made a concerted effort to fill their biggest needs in the draft. Drake Maye has been a consensus top-three QB in this draft class and could push Jacoby Brissett for playing time as soon as this season. He has everything you could want in a franchise QB and is one of the more experienced signal callers in the draft.
New England added some nice talent around Maye. The team reinforced their offensive line by adding tackle Caedan Wallace and guard Layden Robinson. They should offer solid depth in 2024 and could push for starting jobs in the future. The Patriots also added a few weapons for Maye with receivers Ja’Lynn Polk and Javon Baker. Polk was a productive receiver at Washington and projects to start with the Patriots in 2024. Baker is an exciting prospect in his own right but he has an uphill battle against veterans JuJu Smith-Schuster, K.J. Osborn, and others to carve out a role.
The Patriots have added some nice pieces and reestablished an identity as a team under first-year head coach Jerod Mayo. They will compete in a competitive AFC East in 2024.
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