The NFL Draft is officially in the books. After entering the week with 11 picks, the Patriots ultimately used nine as a pair of trades up helped the team land offensive tackle Caleb Lomu and edge rusher Gabe Jacas in the first two rounds.
The focus here on Pats Pulpit has been all draft talk. For anything that fell through the cracks, let’s clean out the notebook. Welcome to this week’s edition of our Sunday Patriots Notes.
Patriots EVP of Player Personnel Eliot Wolf knows how important offenisve tackles are — and how hard they are to come by.
In his first season as de facto GM in 2024, Wolf’s Patriots had a revolving door at both tackle spots. Free agent addition Chuks Okorafor lasted just one game before leaving the team. Third-round draft pick Caedan Wallace struggled to switch sides before starting just two games due to injury.
New England was primarily forced to rely on Vederian Lowe and Demontrey Jacobs, who was claimed off of waivers prior to the season, throughout the year. Guard Mike Onwenu also filled in at right tackle for multiple starts.
The results were as expected. The Patriots’ offensive line ranked among the league’s worst as the team won just four games.
“Very challenging,” Wolf said Saturday about finding quality tackles. “I would say most of my career, you always think you’re going to have enough once the training camp or preseason hits, and you don’t.”
The following offseason, Wolf and company attached the tackle spot. They signed Morgan Moses to a three-year deal in free agency before using the No. 4 overall pick on Will Campbell. New England also double-dipped at the position, selecting Marcus Bryant in the seventh round.
Even with improved results last season, the work was not done.
In the first-round of the 2026 NFL Draft, the Patriots traded up to select offensive tackle Caleb Lomu. The Utah product does not project to start with Campbell and Moses in place, but adds valuable swing tackle depth and a potential successor to Moses down the line.
“I’m really excited about this player,” Wolf said. He’s young, he’s experienced, he’s athletic, he’s a great kid. Frankly, I was a little surprised that he was still available, and that’s why we decided to move up a little bit.”
For the second straight year, the Patriots then double-dipped at the position in the draft, selecting Texas A&M’s Dametrious Crownover in the sixth round.
“It is a premium position in our league, the pool of players that can play the position is relatively small and you can never have enough depth I think there,” vice president of player personnel Ryan Cowden said. “The emphasis we want to talk about or that we do talk about in protecting the quarterback, it starts up front.”
“Having obviously Caleb [Lomu], but having the opportunity to draft a guy with the experience of Dametrious Crownover at that point in the draft was pretty important to us,” Wolf added.
Lomu and Crownover will join a crowded offensive tackle room in New England. Beyond Campbell and Moses, Bryant and veteran James Hudson entered the weekend as the primary depth options.
“If I would want a room to be crowded, I’ll take that as being one room that’s crowded,” Cowden said. “We don’t ever know what’s going to happen tomorrow, the next day, so that’s why you stick to a concept of the best player available when you pick, even if it, today, looks crowded. That’s not going to maybe be the same in a week, two weeks or by the time we get the training camp.
“Those guys go in a room and compete. And when you take the best player, sometimes it may look crowded on the front end, but those tend to have a way of working out.”
Earlier this week, head coach Mike Vrabel announced he would not be with the team on Day 3 of the draft in order to seek counseling with his family. That came shortly before the New York Post released more photos of Vrabel with former Athletic reporter Dianna Russini from 2020.
While Vrabel was originally expected to have some sort of communication with the team on Saturday, they ultimately made the decision Friday night that Vrabel would not be in contact with the draft room.
“[Friday] night we kind of talked through things and made the decision that the time away really needs to be time away, so we were not in contact with Mike today other than some just, ‘Hope everything’s going OK’ kind of texts early this morning,” Eliot Wolf shared.