The New England Patriots have a history of using a late-round draft pick on an unexpected quarterback they do not appear to need. In the 2000 draft, the Patriots went in with a newly hired head coach in then-48-year-old Bill Belichick. At the time, the Patriots had one of the NFL’s premier quarterbacks in Drew Bledsoe.
Seven years earlier, another newly hired Patriots coach, Bill Parcells, made Bledsoe the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. The Patriots got that top pick by finishing a humiliating 2-14 in 1992. But with Bledsoe leading the way, two year later the Patriots won 10 games, and another two years after that, the team won 11 and reached only the second Super Bowl in franchise history.
New England lost that Super Bowl to the Green Bay Packers, but even four years later when Belichick took over as coach, there was no reason to believe that Bledsoe would not be the Patriots quarterback for years to come.
A Sixth Round Pick by the Name of Tom Brady
In fact, in March 2001 the Patriots signed Bledsoe to what was then the largest contract in NFL history — 10 years for $103 million. But in the previous year’s draft they had used a sixth-round pick, 199th overall, on a lightly regarded Michigan quarterback named Tom Brady.
Last year, albeit with somewhat different end results, the Patriots used another sixth round pick, 193rd this time, to select Tennessee signal caller Joe Milton III, who less than a year later they traded to the Dallas Cowboys. But the Patriots took Milton even though they had used the No. 3 overall pick in that same draft to take North Carolina’s Drake Maye, seen as their franchise quarterback of the future.
In the 2025 draft, the most surprising storyline after the first two days is the fall of Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, who was earlier predicted by numerous draft experts and scouts to be either the first or second quarterback taken in the draft. But in a stunning development, after the first two days and three rounds of the draft, Sanders was still without an NFL home.
Perhaps even more shockingly, two teams each in dire need of a new quarterback — the New Orleans Saints and Cleveland Browns — took Louisville QB Tyler Shough and Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel, respectively, in the second and third rounds.
In all, five quarterbacks were taken in the first three rounds — but not Sanders, the son of NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders who served as the head coach of his son’s Colorado Buffaloes team.
Patriots Picking Sanders No Longer ‘Absurd’
With Day Three on Saturday, however, reporter Nick O’Malley of the Boston-area outlet MassLive suggested that Patriots history might repeat itself again, with the organization picking an unlikely quarterback in the late rounds.
“The idea of the Patriots taking Sanders in the draft would have been absurd a few days ago. But after trading Joe Milton, New England could be in a position to draft a young quarterback late,” O’Malley wrote in a report published early Saturday morning. “If Sanders falls far enough, would the team consider it? At this point, anything seems possible.”
Patriots independent blogger Dan Kelley also suggested the possibility.
“The New England Patriots will draft a quarterback on Day 3 of the NFL Draft,” Kelley predicted in an online post. “Maybe it ends up being Shedeur Sanders.”
But what about the Patriots decision-makers themselves? Do they dismiss this speculation as just so much baloney?
Not exactly. In O’Malley’s MassLive report, New England executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf acknowledged that the team had “evaluated” Sanders and called it “surprising” that the former Colorado QB who led the Big 12 with 4,137 passing yards and 37 touchdown throws last season, had not been drafted after the first two days.
“It was interesting to see that he’s still available and I’m sure there’s going to be a fit for him here tomorrow,” Wolf said. But he did not specify if by “here” he meant New England.
