Caedan Wallace release the latest add to Patriots’ draft debacles – NBC Sports Boston

Again, in a narrow window, it’s not a big deal. In the larger picture, though, the release of Wallace adds to what has been a remarkably poor stretch of drafting for the Patriots — with one important exception.

The exception? Drake Maye. Third overall pick in 2024, MVP runner-up in 2025, face of the franchise for the next decade and beyond. That was a good pick. It may have been the obvious pick for a QB-needy franchise with the third overall pick in a draft with three top-of-the-first-round options at quarterback. Nevertheless, the Patriots nailed that one.

Outside of that, though, the 2024 draft was almost a complete miss for the Patriots.

After drafting Maye, the Patriots tried to pair him with a rookie receiver when they selected Ja’Lynn Polk out of Washington with the 37th overall pick. The Patriots actually traded down from No. 34 overall, allowing the Chargers to pick receiver Ladd McConkey.

McConkey has caught 148 passes for 1,938 yards and 13 touchdowns. Polk, who boasted that he possessed the best hands in the NFL, has caught 12 passes for 87 yards and two touchdowns. After being sent to New Orleans in what was essentially a late-round pick swap last year, he retired from the NFL last week.

Fellow receiver Javon Baker promised that his level of play was so exciting that he could “make people in wheelchairs stand up.” He has one career reception for 12 yards, and that catch came in the Patriots’ Week 18 win over Buffalo — a game the Bills were intentionally trying to lose.

Quarterback Joe Milton won that game (even if Drake Maye technically started), but he, too, was sent away in a late-round pick swap.

Dial played as a rookie, almost exclusively as a special teamer, but tore his ACL last summer.

Layden Robinson started 11 games as a rookie but was put on IR last summer before being waived in the fall.

Coming off a 4-13 season in Bill Belichick’s final year, the Patriots were well-positioned to have a 2024 draft that could reshape the roster for years to come. Eliot Wolf, Jerod Mayo and the rest of the Patriots’ brain trust at least got the quarterback right, but it’s fair to say they missed on just about every other pick.

The 2023 draft looks very similar to 2024, except the team did find some late-round steals in Kayshon Boutte and DeMario Douglas. Boutte had some red flags from his time at LSU but was deemed worthy of a sixth-round flier, as was the undersized Pop Douglas, who impressed the entire coaching staff immediately and seemingly had his roster spot secured before training camp even began.

As was the case in 2024, the Patriots knocked it out of the park with their first-round pick in Christian Gonzalez, who — despite missing most of his rookie year — quickly proved he’s one of the NFL’s top cornerbacks.

Belichick boldly traded down from No. 14 in that draft, allowing the Steelers to draft tackle Broderick Jones, the Jets to draft defensive end Will McDonald, and the Commanders to draft another cornerback — Emmanuel Forbes — before New England took Gonzalez. (One could nitpick and point out that Jaxon Smith-Njigba might have been a better pick, but doing so might be pedantic.)

Outside of that, though, the 2023 draft represented a major missed opportunity for a franchise in desperate need of young talent. Keion White looked the part but never came close to filling expectations as an NFL edge rusher. Marte Mapu was too big to be a safety but too small to be a linebacker, though he did play three years for New England. If just one of Sidy Sow, Atonio Mafi or Jake Andrews stuck on the O-line, it could have been considered a win. Alas, none did.

Belichick also traded up (!) with the Jets (!!) to take Chad Ryland in the fourth round. He’s turned into a pretty good kicker for the Cardinals but is most remembered in New England for missing a 35-yard field goal that would have forced overtime against the Giants but instead helped New England land Drake Maye in the 2024 draft. So it wasn’t all bad.

The image of the 2022 draft speaks for itself. Cole Strange was the reach of all reaches. Tyquan Thornton was a miss, plain and simple. Jack Jones ran into some trouble. Bailey Zappe made a good first impression but has proven to not be an NFL quarterback, and nobody else in the class has earned a real NFL role.

Marcus Jones was a great find in the third round, and he’s the only one saving the 2022 class from being a complete miss from top to bottom.

To be fair, the 2021 class wasn’t terrible. Mac Jones at No. 15 as the fifth quarterback off the board wasn’t the wrong pick, per se, even if he didn’t work out in the long term. Christian Barmore has more or less given the Patriots all they could hope from a second-round defensive tackle, and Rhamondre Stevenson has been a steady, valuable contributor to the Patriots’ offense — a great pick in the fourth round.

Two or three more hits, and maybe the final years of Belichick’s tenure plays out completely differently.

The 2020 draft did have some hits — Kyle Dugger in the second round ended up being pretty good, Mike Onwenu in the sixth was an exceptional pick, Josh Uche and Anfernee Jennings played plenty of football for the Patriots — but featured two tight-end whiffs in the third round (Devin Asiasi, Dalton Keene) and a wasted pick in the fifth round on a punter (Justin Rohrwasser) who would never actually kick a football in an NFL game.

Of course, the 2020s didn’t pop up out of nowhere. The selection of N’Keal Harry in the first round of 2019 was a colossal mistake, along with Joejuan Williams 13 picks later in the second round. Isaiah Wynn and Sony Michel in the first round a year prior didn’t work out in the long run, even if Michel did play an instrumental role in winning the Super Bowl as a rookie. Duke Dawson was that year’s second-round pick, too.

Those, though, may be stretching back a bit far. For the sake of staying current, the release of Wallace just shines another spotlight on the rough stretch of drafting that defined the first half of this decade.

On a positive note, the first year of Mike Vrabel and Ryan Cowden seemed to yield some positive picks. Whether or not Will Campbell sticks as a left tackle, he’s definitely an NFL-caliber starting offensive lineman. TreVeyon Henderson ran for 911 yards and nine touchdowns as a rookie. Jared Wilson started 13 games as a rookie on offense while Craig Woodson played almost every possible snap as a rookie on defense.

Andy Borregales proved to be a decent pick as far as picking kickers goes, and there’s still hope for Bradyn Swinson, Marcus Bryant and Joshua Farmer to carve out roles. (There’s still some hope for Kyle Williams, technically speaking, but the odds are stacked against his chances of impacting the Patriots this year.)

That draft helped lead to a Super Bowl appearance, and there’s plenty of promise in the Caleb Lomu-Gabe Jacas-Eli Raridon trio that made up the team’s top picks this year. Perhaps — perhaps — the recent run of positive steps indicates that the dark days of Patriots drafting are a thing of the past. Regardless, those lost draft classes of the 2020s most easily explain how and why the Patriots fell from the class of the NFL to the bottom of the league in such a short time.