Patriots meet with two projected top-50 quarterbacks
Getting ready to decide who the New England Patriots should take with the third overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, de facto general manager Eliot Wolf told reporters on Tuesday that the team planned on meeting with the three quarterbacks expected to go in that range – USC’s Caleb Williams, LSU’s Jayden Daniels, and UNC’s Drake Maye. However, the Patriots aren’t limiting their research to the top of the quarterback board.
On Wednesday, Doug Kyed of The Boston Herald reported that in addition to those meetings, the Patriots have also met with two quarterbacks projected to go in the next tier – J.J. McCarthy from Michigan and Bo Nix from Oregon.
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Both quarterbacks currently have a wide range of projections. Some projections have either McCarthy or Nix – if not both – going as high as the top 15 picks, while others have them lasting early into the second round.
For the Patriots, acquiring either would likely mean some sort of trade – either down from the third overall pick to add assets, or up from 34 if the later projections hold true.
McCarthy is coming off of his second full season as a starter, when he quarterbacked Michigan to a National Championship. While his size (6-foot-3, 202 pounds), age (he just turned 21 last month) and athleticism suggest a high ceiling he’s seen a a relatively raw prospect given his overall lack of experience (just 28 college starts) and limited role in Michigan’s run-heavy offense.
Click here for a full J.J. McCarthy scouting report
Nix meanwhile comes in with a ton of experience. He was a starter as a true freshman for Auburn in 2019, and held the job until 2022 when he transferred to Oregon – where he started another two years. His 61 college starts are an NCAA record. Nix also set the record for single-season completion percentage in 2023 (77.4 percent, narrowly passing Mac Jones’ 2020 mark), although he had one of the lowest average depths of target in all of college football.
Click here for a full Bo Nix scouting report
With these two meetings on the books, the Patriots have now met with five of the ‘big six’ quarterbacks in this draft – the only six projected to go in the top 100. The only player they haven’t had a reported meeting with is Washington’s Michael Penix, who was the fourth-ranked quarterback on our pre-Combine big board. Keep scrolling for a full list of the Patriots’ pre-draft meetings that have been reported so far…
2024 Patriots pre-draft meeting tracker
Throughout the pre-draft process, NFL teams meet with prospects sometimes on multiple occasions. These meets can occur at showcase games like the Senior Bowl and Shrine Bowl, the NFL Combine, can be organized officially (top-30 visits), or be arranged in a number of other ways.
While these meetings aren’t always a perfect indication of who a team will draft, they often provide a general guide of the kinds of players a team is considering drafting. Tracking meetings can also come to fruition later on when a draft class hits free agency.
Last year the Patriots only had an official pre-draft meeting with one of their draft picks (Christian Gonzalez) and signed another as a UDFA (Malik Cunningham). In 2022 they met with two draft picks (Jack Jones and Marcus Jones) and another UDFA (D’Eriq King). Make of that what you will – the more pessimistic fans can use meetings as a guide to players the Patriots won’t be drafting.
Who have the Patriots met with in 2024? Here’s a running list. Be sure to check back throughout the offseason as the list is updated.
This list doesn’t include the players who were at the Patriots’ local pro day. That group can be found here.