FOXBOROUGH – Drake Maye has basically had two Christmas mornings the last 48 hours.
After getting his (hopeful) blindside protector for the next 5-10 years in Will Campbell on Thursday, the Patriots added electric Ohio State running back TreVeyon Henderson in the second round on Friday night along with speedy Washington State wide receiver Kyle Williams and Georgia center (maybe guard?) Jared Wilson.
Just before midnight, Eliot Wolf stepped to the podium at Gillette Stadium to answer question for about 20 minutes.
The most interesting thing to come out of those 20 minutes was Wolf’s explanation regarding a war room debate before taking Henderson, something he said was very important for the continued growth and collaboration in the front office.
“The hardest decision tonight was what to eat. I wasn’t real excited about some of the choices in there, but eventually they – no, In all honesty, there were some really good conversations before our first pick with Coach Vrabel, Ryan [Cowden], Cam, Matt [Groh] and Alonzo [Highsmith],” he said. “Just, there was a little bit of a debate about who we were going to pick and ultimately, one of the players we were talking about got drafted, so it didn’t end up mattering, but I think it was a really good step in the right direction just for us working together in our relationship as co-workers because we have to have productive disagreements for this to work.
“We can’t just agree on everything; we can’t just acquiesce to each other on something, so I think it was really productive from that standpoint.”
New England was also pretty active later in the night, making a couple trades back before ultimately taking Wilson with the 95th pick of Day 2. It could mean they’ll be active again on Sunday for rounds 407, with six picks currently.
“Yeah, we were able to add a couple of picks. We added a fifth, and then we added another pick next year, so we were excited to be able to do that,” Wolf said. “That’s just the way the board was dictated to us, the way it was stacked. We feel fortunate about that. The way the board is holding up right now, there’s still some players that we feel can help us moving forward.”
There’s also a strong chance the team continues to load up on defense, with maybe one or two more pieces added on a suddenly good offensive team.
“Pretty excited about the players that we were able to add to the team. Starting last night and continuing on tonight, obviously helped the offense out. As we move forward here, certainly going to look to address the defense,” Wolf added. “Yeah, certainly we have that option.
“I think we’re up fourth tomorrow, so I wouldn’t imagine we’ll go up from there, but with having three fives, we have some flexibility to maybe go up if the board kind of dictates that there’s someone that we can’t live without.”