It’s too bad the Patriots don’t draft high enough to get receivers like Reed, Doubs or Wicks. /end sarcasm. My larger point is that these are 3 great examples of receivers that the Patriots could have drafted.
To be fair, the Packers seem much better than league average at either coaching or drafting receivers. But to be critical most teams have found contributors at WR in the middle rounds.
Or DK Metcalf, Deebo, AJ Brown....
But I digress, because I will never, not ever, get over that draft.
I'm not so sure it's just that the Packers are better at identifying talent at WR, it's that they made sure to keep trying to...
Once it became clear that Aaron Rodgers (and Adams) was likely on his last deal with them, they started working towards the future. They drafted Jordan Love in 2020. He didn't start seeing snaps in real games until 2023. In 2021, they used a 3rd rounder on Amari Rodgers (bust). So they ran it right back and in 2022, they drafted Christian Watson in the 2nd, Romeo Dobbs in the 4th and Toure in the 6th. In 2023, they used another 2nd on Jayden Reed, they used a 2nd on TE Luke Musgrave, they used a 3rd on TE, Tylerr Kraft, they used a 5th on Wicks, and they used a 7th on another WR, Dubose. In a 3 year span, they took 7 wide receivers and 2 tight ends to start getting their young QB up to speed, knowing they won't hit on a all of them.
Conversely, what did Bill do here? They drafted Mac Jones in 2021. At that time, they had drafted EIGHT wide receivers going back to 2011 and 5 of those 8 were in the last two rounds with 4 of them in the 7th round (Jeremy Ebert in 2012 in the 7th, Josh Boyce in the 4th in 2013, Aaron Dobson in the 2nd in 2013, Gallon in the 7th in 2014, Devin Lucien in the 7th in 2016, Berrios in the 6th in 2018, Harry in the 1st in 2019, and they took Tre Nixon in the 7th in the Mac draft in 2021).
They completely fucking ignored the position in the draft because they had Tom Brady to clean up their mess. They did take 2 tight ends in the third round in 2020, who have a combined 7 career NFL catches, so I guess there was that.
But here we have a rookie QB coming in, and they haven't made it a real priority at all. So one would figure, like Green Bay, time to take a bunch of swings? Nope, they take Thornton in the 2nd in 2022, Boutte and Pop in the 6th in 2023 and then they come back in 2024 with Polk in the 2nd and Baker in the 4th.
If you're going to draft wide receivers, you need to either go up and get the elite talent, or you need to do what Green Bay does and swing and swing and swing in consecutive years. The Pats have done neither. The only receiver the Pats took in 2021, knowing they were going to send Mac Jones out there to start from day one was Tre Fucking Nixon in the 7th round and they didn't take a single receiver in 2020. That's fucking malpractice.