The Giants and Vikings both came calling for a chance to draft Maye in the first round.
The New England Patriots proclaimed that they were open for business before the 2024 NFL Draft, with their third overall selection up for sale. Acquiring that premium pick and the chance to draft one of the top quarterback prospects available was not going to be cheap, however.
The Patriots, as head coach Jerod Mayo called it, were looking for a “bag” — a sizable offer capable of changing the franchise’s fortunes even with the No. 3 pick going elsewhere. Nonetheless, teams came calling an making proposals to motivate New England off of its spot: the Minnesota Vikings and New York Giants both pushed for a trade.
Ultimately, however, nothing materialized. The Patriots stayed put, and drafted North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye.
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This begs the question: what did these offers look like? While their exact same nature is not known, Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer reported that both would have given the Patriots multiple first-round picks to work with:
Prior to the first round of the draft, we looked at potential trade offers that might have made New England give up the third overall pick and a chance to select Drake Maye. The trade scenarios looked at would all have been more favorable to the Patriots than what the Vikings and Giants actually proposed, but even those looked like long-shots.
One big reason was a lack of assurances that the Patriots would be in a position to get another one of the top quarterbacks available, J.J. McCarthy. While McCarthy eventually came off the board as the fifth quarterback when he was drafted by Minnesota at No. 10, trading down would have added an element of risk to New England’s draft plans of picking a quarterback high.
That element was eliminated by staying put. For the Patriots, this always was the most likely outcome.
“The trade offers, I don’t say they were constant, but there were different points throughout the process where there were trades [offered],” director of scouting Eliot Wolf said on Thursday night, after his team picked Maye. “All along we knew we were in a unique opportunity here to get a quarterback that we liked, and we were obviously able to do that.”
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