As it stands, the Patriots will end up finishing in the Top 5 of the draft, most likely in the Top 3. With how highly QBs have been drafted, we can assume that one of Harrison/Fashanu/Alt would be available at Pick 5, all but guaranteeing us the opportunity to draft one of the best non-QB prospects in the draft. With both WR and OT being obvious needs for us, any of these three would be a good pick and fill a hole on the roster immediately.

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Now why would I make the case for not drafting a QB? After all, QB seems to be an obvious need as well and it is the most important position in football. It's quite simple: Opportunity cost. With the state of the offense, a rookie QB is not going to solve all the problems immediately. He'd be still throwing to what can be argued is the leagues worst WR corps as well as standing behind what is at best an average Offensive Line. This is not a good situation for a rookie QB to get thrown into. Even upgrades in Free Agency won't compensate for that and forcing veterans to learn the playbook at the same time as the rookie QB will rob that rookie QB of an important support pillar as he can no longer lean on veterans to help him out, at least not in the same fashion as if they were already around for a while. This leads me to believe that a rookie QB might be able to improve our offense somewhat, it's likely to be just enough for us to not be able to get him a decent supporting cast in the draft after that, definitely not someone of the caliber of Harrison or Fashanu.

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Now why do I propose to stick with Mac for another year and draft some support for him?

Regardless of how he plays, we win: If he's as terrible as you guys here keep saying and he'll sink the offense, then we're going to be at roughly the same spot as we'll be this year, allowing us to either be in position or able to move up to grab a top QB prospect. Only this time, the rookie will actually be set up to succeed. However, if Mac actually plays good then we likely don't need a new QB and can instead focus on improving the team by drafting let's say another good WR or another talented OL.

In addition to that, Mac is not only cheap next year as he still is on his rookie deal, with his play over the last two seasons he is not in a position to demand an expensive contract, allowing us to sign a lot of good players in Free Agency if we so desire.

A point that should also be mentioned is that the Defense is likely to need a partial overhaul in the 2025 Draft. It's probably going to be fine next year, but it'll need upgrades and replacements the year after that. This would coincide with the Draft in which we would have to pick the majority of the supporting cast for whatever rookie QB we'd pick this year, stretching our picks extremely thin and making it likely that we'll have to either half-ass both or be forced to focus on one of the two needs.

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Maybe we can have a mature discussion.