Patriots Mailbag: Where things stand after a surprise performance in Buffalo

The conversation around the New England Patriots certainly got a shake-up over the weekend. That's true in more ways than one.

On the field the Patriots went into Orchard Park as a two-touchdown underdog, yet jumped out to a 14-point lead before falling 24-21 to the Buffalo Bills. Even with the loss, it was arguably the team's most well-rounded performance of the 2024 season.

Prior to the game, NFL's Ian Rapoport shared that the expectation for New England right now is to retain head coach Jerod Mayo for next year. Sunday's result likely only helped his job security.

At the same time, the 2025 draft picture also changed on Sunday. With the Las Vegas Raiders beating the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Patriots are now in position to hold the second overall pick with two weeks to go in the season.

This week's mailbag has questions covering all of those topics and more. Let's get started...

It was a pretty surprising effort, especially considering how the Patriots played coming out of the bye the week before. The most surprising aspect was how well the Patriots defended Josh Allen, who has been a handful for them the past few years. In what's been a rough season for the Patriots' defense, it was a flash of them playing to their ceiling. 

If we're just playing the prediction game here, I'd say the odds are low. Most of the reporting right now suggests the organization is willing to give Jerod Mayo another year. 

The real question is what changes will be made around him? That starts with the roster - after a disappointing offseason last year Eliot Wolf has to do more to add impact players this year. Then there's the matter of the rest of the coaching staff? If DeMarcus Covington's job safe after the defense took a significant step back? Will Alex Van Pelt stick around to continue Drake Maye's development, or will the Patriots target a more experienced play caller? It would be more surprising to see no changes at the coordinator level than at the head coaching level. 

As stated above, I'm expecting the Patriots to keep Jerod Mayo on after this season. To play out the exercise here, I'd take Mike Vrabel from this list.

When talking about a potential new head coach for the Patriots, a lot has been made of getting an offensive coach instead of a defensive coach to benefit Drake Maye. While there is certainly upside there, I think the more pressing matter is for the Patriots to get a coach with prior experience running a team, hence Vrabel (or any other candidate with prior NFL head coaching experience).

Replacing a rookie coach with another rookie coach - however promising that rookie may be - still doesn't guarantee to fix some of the bigger problems facing the Patriots. Somebody who can step in and reimplement an already proven program should get things turned around quicker. 

There's two leading candidates here - running back Rhamondre Stevenson and safety Kyle Dugger. I'll go with Stevenson, because Dugger is dealing with injuries that seem to be impacting his performance. Meanwhile, Stevenson suddenly has a serious fumble problem - he's fumbled seven times in 205 carries this year, after fumbling seven times total over his first three NFL seasons and 499 carries. 

That being said, Dugger hasn't been great. Given his contract structure it's highly likely he'll be back next year, so the Patriots need to hope once he's fully healthy he returns to being the player he was to start his career. 

This would probably be an overpay by the Patriots. When assessing D.K. Metcalf's value, it helps to look at recent wide receiver trades. Over the past few years, top wide receivers have mainly gone for packages highlighted by Day 2 picks. Metcalf also likely needs a new contract, which should impact his trade value favorably for the Patriots. 

For instance, when it looked like Brandon Aiyuk was going to be traded last summer, the reported offer was a second-round pick, future fourth-round pick, and Kendrick Bourne. Considering Metcalf is slightly older than Aiyuk and not coming off of as productive of a season, the return should end up being slightly less than that. 

My guess is to get Metcalf while outbidding other teams to do so, a second-round pick would be the ceiling for the Patriots to give up (factoring in their second-round pick being at the top of the round). If there aren't many teams to bid against, they could potential get it done with a Round 3 pick along with a current and future Day 3 pick. 

Whatever it would cost, it's too much for the Patriots to pay with all the other holes on their roster. Finding capable left tackles in the NFL is hard enough, forget a franchise caliber player like Rashawn Slater. Yes they have Joe Alt on the other side, but even if they move him now they'd have to find a right tackle - also not easy. It would be incredibly shortsighted for the Chargers to trade Slater rather than re-sign him, and if they do the ask should be a first round pick and more - which the Patriots can't afford to do. 

There were a ton of questions about the Patriots potentially trading back in this week's mailbag. If yours didn't get picked, the answer likely would have been similar to this one.

That answer is - it's two soon to say. We're missing a few variables right now. The first and most obvious is it depends on the rest of the roster. If a QB-needy team ends up with the third overall pick, the Patriots could move back just one spot, and still get their guy (although end up with slightly less of a return). That could even be true if the QB team is at the fourth pick, if the Patriots are O.K. passing on Travis Hunter. 

Another variable is how the Patriots view Hunter. If they see him primarily as a cornerback - which FOX's Jay Glazer said last week most teams do - they may rather use their first pick elsewhere given they already have an established cornerback in Christian Gonzalez. That's not a guarantee of course, just a thought.

Then there's the question of Will Campbell's arm length. Offensive line coach Scott Peters said last week "generally, when you look at the position for a guy at tackle, 33 inches is probably the cutoff point. But there's guys that can operate at under that, but now they got to have exceptional feet and redirect." If Campbell's arms are within the range where the Patriots view him as a tackle, the third or fourth overall pick wouldn't be much of a reach given his skills. If they don't see him as a tackle, they probably shouldn't be taking him in the range where they would be trading down. 

Either way, the trade down option is going to be enticing for the Patriots. With a weaker top of the draft and multiple holes to fill a potential extra first round pick - even if it's in the future - could end up being the ultimate prize. That said the Patriots still shouldn't trade down too far, to make sure they still have a shot at a blue-chip player. Moving any further than the seventh or eighth pick probably wouldn't be worth it. 

Some currently-projected late Day 1 or Day 2 offensive linemen to know...

OT Josh Conerly, Oregon
OT Earnest Greene, Georgia
OT/IOL Wyatt Milum, West Virginia
IOL Tate Ratledge, Georgia
C Jared Wilson, Georgia
C Jake Majors, Texas

No, once the tiebreakers are settled in the first round, teams with the same records rotate those picks as the draft goes on with the team getting the more favorable pick in each round moving to the end of the order in the next round. For instance, last year the Patriots, Commanders, and Cardinals each finished with four wins. Here's how their picks were originally awarded by round for the first four rounds... 

1st: WAS, NE, AZ
2nd: NE, AZ, WAS
3rd: AZ, WAS, NE
4th: WAS, NE, AZ

That pattern continues through the end of the draft. Right now, because there are so many teams tied at 3-12 that system creates more variance that usual. Over the final two weeks though expect that crowd to be thinned out some. For Patriots fans fixated on draft position, keep in mind that any wins by Jacksonville, Tennessee, Cleveland, or Las Vegas will improve the team's positioning on Days 2 and 3 of the draft, as things stand right now.