As the Patriots Continue to Scout Top 5 Quarterbacks, a Trade Up in the Draft Seems More Likely by the Day

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At the beginning of March, I posted about a report in The Athletic that the Patriots were heavily scouting the top five quarterbacks in this year's class:

Since then, they haven't eased up one bit, despite still sitting on the 15th pick and seemingly out of the running for any of them. Like the kid in school with the below average looks, athleticism and popularity who isn't afraid to work the Cool Girls table for a prom date, they continue to aim high. Then sent top scout Matt Groh to Trey Lance's Pro Day. Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels personally went to watch Matt Jones at Alabama:

And today MMQB reports that they are all set to attend Justin Fields' second Pro Day, scheduled for Wednesday. And the only other team committed landed the No. 3 overall pick, spending three 1sts and a 3rd to get it. 

As of Sunday, I was told just two teams have committed to being in Columbus — the 49ers … and the Patriots. San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan and GM John Lynch are expected to lead the Niners’ contingent to Ohio State (and North Dakota State too). As for the Patriots, this is subject to change, but I wouldn’t be surprised if offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is leading a group there for New England that will likely also max out the three allowable people.

And as the article points out, this isn't going to be some highly staged Dog & Pony, show, but a private workout where the NFL people will be able to put Fields through drills:

[The plan] is to have the NFL folks there run the throwing sessions, rather than have their respective throwing coaches (John Beck and Quincy Avery) script the workouts. … Fields’s workout, at least for right now, is set to be closed to the media (outside of OSU’s in-house video people), so teams that want to see it will have to make the trip.

All of which begs the question of why the Pats would think the valuable time of some of the top Capo de Regimes in the Belichick Crime Family is worth spending this way, scouting guys who are, according to every single published report and mock draft, way out of their reach at 15? So let's discuss. 

As of right now, it's an unassailable truth of the universe that QBs will be the top three players off the board. Carolina (8th pick) is no longer in the market after trading for Sam Darnold. We're not sure about Denver (9th pick), but there are enough reports that they were in the mix on getting Matthew Stafford to assume they're at least thinking about it. And the Falcons (4th) are reportedly willing to talk about trading down. Every other team ahead of New England in the top half of the 1st is all set at the position, with either a franchise QB or one they've drafted in the last couple of years. 

So the Pats options are to sit and hope no one looking for a quarterback cuts line in front of them, stay where they are and either the fourth or fifth drops to them (depending on what Denver does), or do what they've done all offseason: Kick the door down, come in guns blazin' and dicks swingin' and super-aggressively take what they want. As the greatest arch villain in history, the despotic Brad Wesley put it in "Road House," to gather unto them that which is theirs.

But that's where this gets complicated. Like I wrote about that Atlanta pick, going by the old Jimmy Johnson Draft Trade Value chart, and every trade Belichick ever makes seems to fall within a margin of error on that, the price of a move up from No.15 to No. 4 would be next year's 1st rounder, at least. The rest of their picks just don't have the points to make a climb that high feasible. Besides, in his 21-year history in New England, GM Bill has never indicated a willingness to keep raising his paddle at the draft day auction to come away with the pricless, one of a kind object. If anything, he's more likely to stick with the silent auction items at the Little League fundraiser, and settle for that gift basket with all the lottery tickets for 50 bucks and hope one hits the jackpot. 

Consider that in 21 drafts, Belichick has made a total of 14 trades in the 1st round. Four of those were trades up. None of those deals were anywhere near as dramatic and costly a move as climbing 11 spots in the first half of the round. In order they were:

2002: The Pats went from 32 to 21 to take Daniel Graham.

2003: They from 14 to 13 to get Ty Warren.

2012: They moved from 27 to 21 for Chandler Jones, then from 31 to 25 for Dont'a Hightower.

The other 10 1st round trades were either to move back slightly (2008 when they went from 7th to 10th and got Jerod Mayo) or out of the 1st altogether (last year's 23rd pick for a 2nd and a 3rd). 

So anything along the lines of climbing up into, say, the Top 10 would not just be out of character, it would represent a reversal of the long held and very much validated princples upon which this Dynasty has been built. Spending a ton of draft capital to land a QB doesn't never work out, but it fails a lot more than it succeeds. The position itself is so much the crapshootiest of crapshoots, that even having your pick of the litter rarely works out. Consider that in the last 35 years, the only QBs taken in the Top 3 to win Super Bowls for the team that drafted them have been Troy Aikman and Peyton Manning. But don't even go back that far. Just look at more recent history. Russell Wilson being the sixth QB taken (behind Brock Osweiler). Mitchell Trubisky going ahead of Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson. Darnold and Josh Rosen way ahead of Lamar Jackson. 

The point being that if the Patriots do end up getting out their credit card to use future draft capital to land the fourth or fifth best quarterback in the Class of 2021, it would be the single boldest move of Belichick's career. It would represent nothing less than a total reversal of the way the Pats have done business during his reign. Almost a betrayal of his core values. Which makes me think it won't happen. I think he'd be perfectly willing to stand pat at 15 and hope one of The Five falls to him. Or failing that, be patient and settle for a Davis Mills in a later round. Which is not to say I wouldn't love to see it happen, just to watch the widespread national panic at him making such a dramatic statement that he is here to win championships, now and forever, until the sun goes nova. Again, I don't see it happening. But I'd love it if it did.