After weeks of player profiles, mock drafts and rumors, the wait will finally come to an end tonight. The 2026 NFL Draft is right around the corner, and with it an opportunity for the New England Patriots to keep adding to a roster that reached the doorstep of a championship last year.
The circumstances for the team are obviously different than they had been in recent years. Picking at No. 31 overall, a welcome byproduct of their success last season, they are faced with a lot more uncertainty than in 2024
and 2025, when Drake Maye and Will Campbell were the shoo-in picks at No. 3 and No. 4, respectively.
Naturally, what the Patriots are going do on Thursday night as well as on the subsequent two days is anybody’s guess. Heck, they themselves probably don’t know how the chips are going to fall.
Before they do, here are one reporter’s thoughts on the Patriots heading into Day 1 of the NFL Draft. Consider this a mid-week version of our Sunday Patriots Notes, even if it might be a bit less structured and more stream-of-counsciousnessy.
1. With the draft only hours away and rumors swirling around, it is hard to assess what eventually will happen on Thursday night. However, based on everything we know so far, it would not be a surprise if there was indeed a run at the offensive tackle position happening before the Patriots are on the clock.
They have the ammunition to move up the board — 11 draft picks, including five in a 33-pick cluster on Day 3 — but whether or not they will is a different story. For starters, it takes two to tango: they might be willing but if they cannot find a trade partner at the right price, no such climb will materialize.
The question would then become, what’s next? Tackle is not the only priority position the team might be after in the first round, but the scope would get a lot narrower if the top-tier players at that spot are all gone. New England might go after a wideout, but there is reason to believe they won’t (more on that in a second), which leaves two other clear-cut options: edge or trade-down.
Both scenarios appear realistic at this point in time, but, again, trading down might be attractive in theory but not in practice. And so, by the power of elimination, the Patriots could end up at the edge.
At first glance, a lot of the edges in the class and New England’s range look more like potential second-rounders. Akheem Mesidor, T.J. Parker, Cashius Howell, Zion Young, R Mason Thomas, Malachi Lawrence, Gabe Jacas — you name them — they all are good prospects but not necessarily universal first-round material for one reason or another. However, that might not matter when the Patriots are on the clock.
They have to pick someone, sure. But also, like executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf recently said, “this draft is maybe pretty heavy up at the top and then from call it 25 to 50 it’s sort of the same level of player.”
That point of view would justify seemingly over-drafting a player in that range. So, don’t be surprised if that is what ends up happening.
2. Whether it will be the first round or not, the expectation is that the Patriots will target their defensive edge early in order to get that speed element that Eliot Wolf was talking about during the pre-draft process. The expectation also is that they will draft a tight end and a linebacker potentially on the third day.
Those expectations are oftentimes rooted in reality; New England has taken measures to address those positions in the draft. However, expectation also is mostly build externally: we see the edge as a need and that’s why we assume the team does as well.
That might be the case, and by all indication it is. But without knowing the team’s draft board, there is a significant grey area. That is precisely where those seemingly head-scratching selections live.
One good example is cornerback. On paper, the Patriots have no need to address the position early with Christian Gonzalez, Carlton Davis and Marcus Jones all under contract. However, the information that we have — in-game performance, depth charts, contract details — is always incomplete; the team simply knows more about players at the present and how it projects them to perform in the future.
That is why a position like cornerback, albeit not a primary need in our estimation, could still end up seeing a significant investment come draft day. If a corner is the top-rated player on the board at, say, No. 31, and he fits into the projection, he very well could end up in New England even if seemingly not what the team should be looking for at that point in the draft.
Of course, that is only an example. But it illustrates that what we perceive as targets does not necessarily reflect what the team sees.
That, ultimately, is what makes the whole deal so much fun.
3. Leading up to the draft, the Patriots have had close reported contact with over 140 different players. Among them are 17 different wide receivers, which is likely on a fraction of the real number but nonetheless a significant portion relative to the total number available. What stands out about that group is not the volume, though, but rather the names on it.
Texas A&M’s KC Concepcion, who might come off the board as early as Thursday night, is the lone projected early-round receiver on the list. The only other top-100 wideout on the consensus big board to have reported contact with the team is Ole Miss’ De’Zhaun Stribling, who might sneak into the third round but just as easily could end up an early Day 3 selection.
This might mean little — most information remains under wraps until after the draft — but it adds further intrigue to recent reports that the Patriots will eventually end up trading for Eagles wideout A.J. Brown in June. If such a move is indeed in the pipeline, New England might voluntarily have removed itself from the early-round receiver market.
Why invest prime capital into a position that will soon see the addition of an experienced high-level player in exchange for prime capital? Whether that is the correct interpretation will, of course, be seen.
What cannot be denied, though, is that Thursday and Friday will give us an indication one way or another about the state of those talks with the Eagles. If the Patriots forgo the wide receiver spot in the first three rounds, it might be all-systems-go for the Brown trade. If, however, New England ends up drafting a player like Concepcion on Day 1 or Day 2, the plot very much starts to thicken.
4. One skill position that is likely to be addressed in the draft is tight end, and fairly early as well. While it seems unlikely that Oregon’s Kenyon Sadiq will fall into the Patriots’ range, second-tier players such as Vanderbilt’s Eli Stowers or Ohio State’s Max Klare might be on the team’s radar on Day 2.
Of course, Mike Vrabel made an interesting statement during his press conference at the Scouting Combine when he specifically mentioned that, “when you go, and you evaluate other teams, and you get ready to play for them, there’s a bunch of fourth and fifth-round tight ends that end up starting and playing and contributing.”
Whether that is a hint or simply an in-moment observation of the position’s depth will be seen. However, the Patriots have also done their homework on late-round TEs such as Georgia’s Oscar Delp or Notre Dame’s Eli Raridon (who are both among the Pats Pulpit staff’s “guys” in this year’s draft).
Even if they have yet to pick a tight end when Friday comes to an end, the Patriots apparently feel confident that they can find potential contributors on the third day of the draft. They may be of a lesser profile than others, but they do not necessarily have to be of a lesser quality.
5. No matter how he or the team want to spin it, the Mike Vrabel saga has become a distraction. The Patriots’ head coach, who was photographed alongside NFL reporter Dianna Russini at an adults-only resort in Arizona last month, has been in the news constantly over the last few days.
On Tuesday, Vrabel made a surprise statement to the local media. Originally intended not to meet reporters until the draft, he called an audible and opted to address the elephant in the room. He did so without providing much information: he spoke about difficult conversations he had to have, about his excitement about coaching the Patriots, and he made a vow to be the best version of himself moving forward. He also spoke about distractions.
“We believe in order to be successful on and off the field, you have to make good decisions. That includes me, that starts with me,” Vrabel said.
Well, he is. Not entirely because of his private life, regardless of what did or did not happen, but rather because the conduct has now actively started to impact his job as head coach of the Patriots: Vrabel told ESPN in a story that was published at 12:10 a.m. ET on Thursday that he would not be in the draft room on Day 3, and instead will be seeking counseling.
Later on Thursday, some new photos were published that showed him and Russini seemingly getting close to one another in a bar in 2020.
While the matter as a whole is in its core private, it has long departed that particular sphere. Russini resigned from The Athletic shortly after the story became public, for example. Vrabel has not faced any professional backlash of that kind — the NFL said that he would not be under investigation for violating its personal conduct policy — but his absence from the draft on Saturday is nonetheless a concern from the team’s perspective.
“We never want our actions to affect the team. We never want to be the cause of a distraction,” Vrabel added on Tuesday.
Well, he is just that now.
6. What will ultimately come from this whole affair is impossible to say without intimate knowledge of what has actually happened and how informed the people in Vrabel’s and Russini’s inner circle were. What is clear is that the story will not just quietly fade away, but rather be something that both of the parties involved as well as their private and professional surroundings need to learn to deal with.
That process will, for better or worse, happen to a large part in the public eye. That is a reality that both will have to deal with, and one they will not be able to shield their families — including Russini’s children aged 3 and 5 — from either.
Looking at it strictly through a professional lens, meanwhile, it appears Vrabel does still enjoy the Patriots’ backing. His absence from the draft on Saturday is, again, far from ideal given how integral he has been to the entire operation since he arrived in New England last January, but he is not as all-encompassing a presence within the organization than, for example, Bill Belichick was; the team does have experience and apparent synergy within a personnel department that will supposedly be led by Eliot Wolf and Ryan Cowden on Day 3.
Ultimately, there is no telling where this story will go next. Or what victims it might claim further down the line.
7. In the end, and we are talking again from a professional rather than a personal perspective here, it all comes down to accountability. Because for a team like the Patriots to function, that is a key concept that needs to be adhered to by all of its members.
Despite sitting atop the pyramid, Vrabel is no exception. And you can be certain he knows it, too.
The question is how that accountability will manifest itself. Because, frankly, it needs to; the Patriots heading into the season with the story still hanging over their heads very well could be the case, after all. But it is, to a degree, in Vrabel’s hands to decide its impact by being transparent with his players, fellow coaches and ownership, and by following a mantra he probably heard quite a bit during his playing days in New England: ignore the noise.
Doing so will not be easy; fully separating the personal from the professional is a challenge especially given, as mentioned earlier, the public profile that Vrabel enjoys and the outgoing leadership style he has. But that is part of the job, and why said accountability will be vital: if he wants to build and uphold the culture, he needs to live it through good and bad.
8. Sports can admittedly feel irrelevant in today’s world, yet they still provide distraction and an opportunity to converse with likeminded individuals.
And the draft, more so than any other event on the NFL calendar, encapsulates this perfectly. At no other point in the year are the 32 fan bases as close to one another as they are right now: everybody looks at the same pool of players and everybody forms their own opinions on them regardless of team allegiances.
The fact that we are able to provide a forum for those opinions to be expressed, one that operates outside of what can oftentimes be the depressing reality of life in the year 2026, is something to be proud of. And thankful for because without you — readers, commenters, lurkers, trolls just waiting for their chance — none of this would be possible in the first place.
So, thank you for being part of our little community here. We hope you know how much we appreciate it.
And with that said: let’s enjoy these next few days, grab some coffee and snacks, and go Pats.
