Are the New England Patriots about to anoint Tom Brady’s heir? Plus five other big NFL draft questions

As surprising and terrifying as it was for the rest of the National Football League when the New England Patriots traded a first-round pick for Brandin Cooks last year, it was the same again when they traded him away to the Los Angeles Rams on Tuesday.

The Rams now look like one of the favourites to meet the Pats in Atlanta next February, less a rising power in the NFC than one that looks fully risen right now after one of the most impressive off-seasons in memory. With quarterback Jared Goff, star running-back Todd Gurley and defensive wrecking ball Aaron Donald all on rookie deals, surrounding talent has been brought in to make this team about as win-now as they come.

But the Patriots are the other end of the same spectrum. They are as win-now as it comes because their quarterback – possibly the greatest player ever at the position – is 41 years old and for all his miraculous feats on the football field, Father Time is one opponent that remains undefeated – even if Brady has defied him more than most.

Cooks was a valuable piece, a first-round wide receiver who has now been traded twice for premier picks. He is ferociously speedy but never quite fit in the Patriots offense. Should things click in Los Angeles then there is a fairly obvious chance that Bill Belichick comes to regret this move but lots of things would have to click into place for that to be the case. Besides, when it comes to Belichick there remains the possibility – or should we say certainty – that there is a bigger plan in place here.

And that is why the rest of the league should be scared.

Brady and Belichick only have perhaps a couple of seasons remaining and the only way to approach those is to do everything possible to try and win Super Bowls. Everyone knows the post-Brady dip will be brutal but a question arises now: are the Pats mortgaging their future to further elevate one of the great NFL dynasties or are they attempting to smooth the transition that will keep them on top years after TB12 has thrown his final pass?

In a historically deep quarterback class, the Patriots’ accrual of premium draft picks is a nugget of great interest. They now have two first- and two second-round picks with which they can either look to secure a raft of starter-ready talent – of which there is expected to be plenty this year – or go big, go bold and trade up into the QB conversation.

open image in gallery

For fans of Miami and Buffalo, already sick of the Patriots’ generation-long dominance of the AFC East, the thought of New England hopping ahead of them in the quarterback queue might be too much to bear but Belichick is notoriously single-minded and has never been afraid to take big decisions. He will know that the likes of Sam Darnold – expected to go first overall to the Cleveland Browns – and Josh Rosen, a target for the New York Jets at three, will not be within their range of possibilities. Josh Allen, the big-bodied Wyoming passer that has set the NFL’s more traditional minds aflutter, is also unlikely to last beyond the top ten of this month’s draft but there are other talented quarterbacks that are going to fall into spots where the Patriots could make a move – it’s just about whether they will.

Baker Mayfield is viewed by some as the best QB in the 2018 draft and if the draft gets to picks in the teens with him still out there then the twitching will begin. Lamar Jackson is a Heisman Trophy winner. Mason Rudolph has plentiful admirers and leads the second tier of signalcallers which includes the likes of Luke Falk. Given the record of developing impressive mid-round quarterbacks behind Brady – most recently Jacoby Brissett and Jimmy Garoppolo – there is the feeling that the Patriots might be able to prepare a seamless succession plan that should have the rest of the league trembling.

They may not, but when an all-time great dynasty led by an all-time great head coach is armed with so many draft picks it’s impossible not to be intrigued – or, if you are a rival like the Dolphins or the Bills, incredibly concerned.

In a draft that is likely to make headlines for the amount of quarterbacks taken in the first round, which other teams are going to solidly be in the hunt for someone new under center?

We can discard the Cleveland Browns and New York Jets who we know will take a passer. Outside them:

The Arizona Cardinals, Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos all have no long-term answer on the roster and need to find someone this year to replace the bridge quarterback in place.

The Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Jacksonville Jaguars and Miami Dolphins need to move on from a below-par incumbent.

And the New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Giants need to find a long-term successor to a QB who has enjoyed success, though the Giants might also have fit in the previous category.

That’s 13 before you even get to teams wanting a back-up.

No matter how strong and deep this quarterback class is, there aren’t 13 of them. You can’t be certain on the evaluations of any of these prospects but you can be certain that some teams will be missing out.

Jim Mora’s quote about Josh Rosen being a “millennial who needs to understand things” has been taken to mean many different things during the time of the year when every phrase is already over-analysed to the point of suffocation.

Rosen was born into money. Unfortunately for him that means he needs to demonstrate more love for football than any other player in the draft because the old-school NFL scouts and personnel executives seem to prefer drafting poor, black and desperate prospects who come from difficult backgrounds and can supposedly be more easily manipulated. The Houston Texans owner’s recent description of players as ‘inmates’ makes a lot more sense when seen through this prism.

Of course, if Rosen wasn’t fully dedicated to football then it would have been a peculiar step to commit those years of his life to college football and to be doing everything possible to be drafted in the top three this month. But common sense rarely enters these evaluations.

open image in gallery

The treatment of Rosen – always via the medium of anonymous sources, the preferred method of those who also queue up to knock stand-out prospect Lamar Jackson simply because he is the leading black quarterback in the draft – is mind-numbingly stupid but ultimately shouldn’t affect his draft stock too much.

In the end, a good quarterback is the sort of draft pick that saves people’s jobs, even if they don’t like the fact that he’s an intelligent, liberal and outspoken talent who doesn’t like Donald Trump. Teams are more than willing to pay eight-figure sums to domestic abusers if it could help them rack up a couple more wins so don’t be surprised if even the most old-school of front offices still consider Rosen on pure talent.

The questions these people have been happy to (anonymously) raise about him and Jackson, however, prove how much the NFL needs a front-office enema to clear out some of the troublesome attitudes that remain.

Elsewhere in the AFC East it was the New York Jets who made the biggest splash by trading up to third overall last month in a ballsy deal with the Indianapolis Colts. It means they will get their quarterback of the future and go into the next couple of seasons with renewed hope that they may have solved a problem that has plagued the franchise for too long.

And as much of a boost as it was for Gang Green, it was a hammer blow for the Buffalo Bills who are desperate to trade up for a QB but now stand to get – at best – the third or fourth passer off the board.

The New York Giants must be feeling the love in the second overall slot and they absolutely should be trying to move back and pick up a ton of picks. They’re probably not going to do that though, because Dave Gettleman seems determined to do utterly stupid things.

It leaves Buffalo trailing in the QB conversation. You can see a trade up into the top 10 that leaves them with Josh Allen – the draft’s most boom-or-bust QB prospect – and Sean McDermott, Brandon Beane and a lot of first-time guys in big jobs hitching their wagons, and futures, to a very volatile passer.

With so many teams falling over themselves to get involved in one of the deepest quarterback drafts in a decade, there are a clutch of other franchises in the back end of the top 10 that could win big if they play their cards right.

The Buccaneers, Bears and 49ers all have their franchise quarterbacks and are picking seventh, eighth and ninth in the first round, which means they will likely have the choice of staying put and taking a blue-chip talent, the best player in any number of key positions, or accepting one of the trade offers certain to arrive on draft night in order to move back and hopefully pick up a couple of long-term starters.

They are talking about the Penn State running back as if he might be a generational talent, but how early is too early for a position that gets paid not much better than a kicker?

The Jaguars, Rams and Cowboys have done well in recent seasons after taking first-round backs so there is less fear factor than there was in the wake of high-profile busts like Trent Richardson, but when you wonder what the Cowboys could have been if they’d taken Jalen Ramsey in that fourth slot instead of Zeke Elliott, it does reiterate that some positions are just easier to find players in.

open image in gallery

Barkley is going to be the centrepiece of whichever offense he lands in, and the Giants have to be favourites to pick him at second overall. However stupidly early that sounds, it might extend Eli Manning’s career in New York and, with them seemingly determined not to draft his successor as they probably should, that must appeal to Gettleman.

The Browns could grab him at four to help out their rookie passer, Denver may have an interest a pick later or the Colts could bite at six to get their first half-decent running-back in a long time. If he falls to the Buccaneers at seven it would be a surprise but it would also transform an already spicy-looking offense. Any further would see teams trading up to grab Barkley, a sensational talent who will light up the NFL – we just don’t know in which uniform that will be yet.