Alright, now we can admit the pick was a failure and that Bill Belichick, although good, is not perfect.
Yeah. That's right. We actually have to give the Patriots a negative mark for once. This is very rare and it does not feel good whatsoever. But here goes nothing...
The Patriots made a bad seventh round draft pick in 2018. They flat out admitted it this week. If you don't know what happened, the team waived Danny Etling.
Instead, they traded for Atlanta Falcons tight end Eric Saubert. They dealt a conditional 2020 seventh round draft pick for the tight end.
Waiving Etling was the corresponding move. This should not come as much of a shock though. On the depth chart at quarterback, he was fourth in the standings. He was a practice squad player for all of last season, third on the depth chart behind Tom Brady and Brian Hoyer. Now, throw Jarrett Stidham into the mix and he was No. 4.
So what about his move to wide receiver? According to Yahoo Sports, that really wasn't going so well. You can't just take any college football quarterback and make him a slot receiver. His name has to be Julian Edelman.
The Patriots feel as though they have a better team now and if that's the case then good for them. It's good that they are not Dave Dombrowski or Alex Cora who would not admit if things were not going so well. Bill Belichick will just cut a guy and then move on. It's that next man up mentality and it deserves credit.
Overall though, the Patriots are in good shape so a little mistake like that is not the end of times. If that's the big error one can harp on about the team, then they must be doing something really well. That's for sure.