Reach for response
Groh addresses value of early picks
By the sounds of his postdraft press conferences, Patriots director of player personnel Matt Groh heard the criticisms lobbed at his first draft picks.
PATRIOTS NOTEBOOK
How the Patriots reached for first-round offensive lineman Cole Strange and second-round speedster Tyquan Thornton. How they failed to squeeze enough value from their highest selections and bypassed better players.
“Yeah, I think that’s really easy for people to say,” Groh said Friday night. “Nobody knows what the teams are going to do behind you.”
Strange was a player most experts projected as a Day 2 prospect until the Patriots made him the 29th overall pick Thursday night. He became the first interior O-lineman the team drafted before the third round since 2005, the first sign of a shift in the Patriots’ draft plan. The second arrived with Thornton, the lightest receiver ever drafted by the Patriots, who also has the smallest hands and slowest 3-cone and short shuttle times of any player in that same group.
The reason the Pats felt comfortable deviating from their traditional prototype? Speed. Rare, 4.28, sizzling speed.
“(The) No. 1 thing is you’ve got to consider what the player does and how the player is going to help you,” Groh said. “You want to get faster? Just like if you want to get tougher, you’d better get tough guys, (If) you want to get faster, you’d better get fast guys. I don’t know how many guys out there are faster than
Tyquan.
“So, we’re really excited to be able to add him and his explosive play-making.”
Like Strange, Thornton was widely projected to be drafted a round or two later. The Patriots clearly felt differently. More than that, they disagreed with the notion either Strange or Thornton wasn’t worthy of a top-50 pick.
“If you value a player high enough, then you want that player to be a part of your team. That’s certainly how we feel about Cole. We’re really excited to have Cole aboard,” Groh said. “You want to talk about value, the guy started at three positions on the offensive line. I think it’s kind of easy to pigeonhole him as a guard. He does a lot. This guy is really tough. He’s really smart. He’s almost 6-5, 300 pounds, and runs sub-5 seconds in the 40(-yard dash). There’s not a lot of humans out there that are doing that.”
Strange is expected to start at left guard next season, while Thornton will fight for playing time in a depth chart packed with veteran receivers DeVante Parker, Kendrick Bourne, Jakobi Meyers and Nelson Agholor.
Fourth-round pick addresses arrest
Former Arizona State cornerback Jack Jones says he’s eager to look forward.
Not only because the Patriots drafted him Saturday in the fourth round, but because he has a checkered past.
In June 2018, Jones was arrested for allegedly breaking into a Panda Express restaurant in Santa Paula, California, for which he later pleaded guilty to a sec
ond-degree misdemeanor charge of commercial burglary and served 45 days of house arrest. The incident followed two seasons at USC, where he initially enrolled as a 5-star recruit. Jones left the school in 2018 after being ruled academically ineligible, and spent the rest of the year at a junior college.
In 2019, he enrolled at Arizona State and came off the bench. He was then suspended for the majority of an abbreviated four-game season in 2020, before emerging as one of the Sun Devils’ best players last season. In 2021, he showed terrific ball skills as a starter, snatching three interceptions and batting away six other passes.
Jones, 24, met with the Patriots during the pre-draft process. Asked about how he’s changed since the arrest Saturday in a conference call with reporters, he declined to offer specifics.
“Thank you, but I’m going
to focus on my job and I’m going to control what I can control going forward,” Jones said. “I’m looking to be the best teammate I could be and help the Patriots out anywhere that I can.”
What did he learn about himself in the following years at Arizona State?
“I learned from it,” he said. “I’m looking forward to moving forward. I’m not really worried about the past. I’m working on my present right now, what I have going on and controlling what I can control.”
Jones also declined to discuss the strengths of his game, choosing only to say he would play every play like it’s his last. As for where he fits in the Patriots defense, the 5-foot-10, 174pounder said he’ll go anywhere the coaches tell him.
“I’ve just got to go and try to help the team any way that I can. You know, it doesn’t matter where I’m at,” Jones said. “So, just help the team as much as I can. I
can’t really tell you what position, though.”
QB Zappe eager to work with Jones
A young Patriots quarterback is eager to defy doubters who see him as an intelligent passer that lacks the physical tools to succeed at the next level.
But enough about Mac Jones.
Fourth-round rookie quarterback Bailey Zappe, another pick viewed as a Patriots reach by draft experts, said he’s excited to join Jones in New England. Zappe comes from Western Kentucky, where he recently broke FBS records for most touchdown passes (62) and passing yards (5,967) in a single season.
“(Mac’s) a phenomenal quarterback. He is a great QB as is the rest of the QBs in that room,” Zappe said. “I am really looking forward to learning from all three of those guys and getting up
there, meeting them and doing as much as I can to help the team.”
At 6-foot and 215 pounds, Zappe was well regarded for his touch and ability to diagnose defenses in the predraft process. But his average arm strength and accuracy didn’t wow evaluators. He projects as the team’s new third quarterback, likely bumping veteran Jarrett Stidham off the roster. The Patriots recently re-signed Brian Hoyer to a two-year contract.
“Being a part of this organization, there are going to be opportunities for me to get to that point and develop as a QB,” said Zappe said. “I think some of the strengths are, I love the game of football, I love learning about the game, my knowledge of the game. (I’ll) continue working on accuracy ball placement like every QB wants to work on. … I am excited to get in the QB room and get to work with them.”