New England Patriots Given Promising Offseason Grade by ESPN

The New England Patriots are getting the job done.

Jun 10, 2024; Foxborough, MA, USA; New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye (10) and quarterback Bailey Zappe (4) participate at minicamp at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Eric Canha-USA TODAY Sports / Eric Canha-USA TODAY Sports

It's no secret that the New England Patriots have underwent some significant changes over these past few offseason months.

By pivoting off of HC Bill Belichick after an extensive 20 seasons, bringing in a new future franchise quarterback at the top of this year's draft, and several more additions on the offensive side of the football, this squad is expected to look massively different from what fans have been used to heading into the 2024 season.

It'll be a bit unpredictable to predict starting off this new era, but it seems many names around the league still view the shifts New England made this offseason in a positive light.

When grading each NFL team's 2024 offseason, ESPN's Seth Walder gave the Patriots an A-, praising their wise and complimentary moves to support third-overall pick Drake Maye in a season that will largely depend on his success:

"Sure, New England's offseason will hinge entirely on how Maye pans out. But the moves the Patriots made around drafting the rookie quarterback make sense for a team building toward reopening its contending window in 2025. The Patriots brought back offensive tackle Mike Onwenu, defensive tackle Christian Barmore and edge rusher Joshua Uche for cheaper prices than expected and added Brissett as a high-quality bridge and/or backup quarterback for $8 million -- also cheap."

- Seth Walder, ESPN

Despite having the significant cap space to make a few splashes on the free agent market or trade for a big name, New England instead focused on keeping their existing talent in-house.

Roster cornerstones such as Mike Onwenu, Christian Barmore, and Kyle Dugger were able to be inked to some long-term and fair-value extensions, allowing the Patriots to continue their focus on drafting and developing for their remaining holes. QB and WR were among those remaining issues to address, and we saw New England effectively find some hopeful answers to that back in April.

Walder continued on to mention possibly the biggest result of this Patriots offseason, describing the team's immense flexibility to improve the roster going forward:

"Most importantly, the team has plenty of resources left. It has a lot of cap space in 2024 ($47 million as of this writing) and 2025 ($118 million). That might be too much space heading into next season, so maybe the Patriots should have spent a little more, but they are set up well to add more talent again next year."

- Seth Walder, ESPN

This Patriots rebuild is far from a one-year turnaround, so the front office remaining a bit more conservative in their spending than expected won't be the end of the world.

Without locking themselves into any big-time contracts across this past free agency period (outside of their re-signings), New England can be patient and methodical in their efforts to move this rebuild along, and can still facilitate a blockbuster trade/signing down the line when an opportunity becomes available.

The Patriots have enough talent on defense to post an above-average unit when healthy, and if the offensive line and Maye can hold up on the other end of the ball, this team could have a significant chance at breaking through their projected win total of 4.5.

Watch out, because New England is trending way up heading into the 2024 season.

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