The New England Patriots have one of the most promising young quarterbacks in the NFL in Drake Maye. The No. 3 overall draft pick out of North Carolina completed two of every three passes he threw in his 2024 rookie season for 2,276 yards and 15 touchdowns. He compiled those numbers in just 11 full games (though he appeared for just one sequence in two other games).
And Maye did it all despite being forced to cope with one of the worst receiving units in the NFL, at least judged by the receivers’ results. In a season where 21 wide receivers caught at least 1,000 yards worth of passes, New England’s leading wide receiver, Demario “Pop” Douglas compiled just 621, 49th among all NFL wide-outs.
League leader JaâMarr Chase of the Cincinnati Bengals caught passes for 1,708 yards. Chase alone caught 17 touchdown passes, just one fewer than the entire Patriots receiving corps managed over 17 games with three different quarterbacks. Douglas and Kayshon Boutte tied for the Patriots team lead with a mere three TD catches each.
Former All-Pro Wide Receiver is Now Available in Trade
Meanwhile, one of the NFL’s top wide receivers, Cooper Kupp of the Los Angeles Rams, has recently become available on the trade market. Though the 31-year-old Rams’ 2017 third round draft pick has seen his production slip over the past couple of years, as recently as 2021 Kupp led the NFL in receptions (145), receiving yards (1,947) and touchdown catches (16), in a year when he was named an All-Pro first-teamer, NFL Offensive Player of the Year and placed third in MVP voting.
As a result, on Monday morning former NFL wide receiver Harry Douglas â who divided his nine seasons between the Atlanta Falcons and Tennessee Titans and is now an ESPN football analyst â made a prediction: Kupp will land with the Patriots.
“I like the way (Maye) played in his rookie season, the time he was out there playing. But when you look at Cooper Kupp, a guy that’s sure handed, reliable, can be an extension of the coaching staff on the football field, very, very smart, a Super Bowl champion â and a quarterback’s best friend,” Douglas said, speaking on ESPN’s SportsCenter. So I’m going with Cooper Kupp to the New England Patriots. And Drake Maye will be very, very happy as well.”
If Maye had a “best friend” in the Patriots’ receiving corps in 2024, it was not a wide receiver at all but instead, tight end Hunter Henry who, like “Pop” Douglas, caught 66 passes to tie for the team lead. But Henry converted those into 674 yards, 56 more than Douglas.
The Patriots lead the NFL in salary cap space with almost $120 million to spend. Kupp has two years to go on a three-year contract extension originally worth $80.1 million.
Kupp Would Elevate Entire Receiving Corps: Expert
The addition of Kupp would not only help Maye, it would allow the Patriots’ other young receivers to develop as well, according to SB Nation Patriots writer Bernd Buchmasser. Kupp, Buchmasser wrote on Monday, “would bring proven production and immediately make the team less reliable on the likes of Boutte, [Kendrick] Bourne, Douglas or [JaâLynn] Polk (which in turn might end up helping those players).” All of those receivers “struggled with consistency in 2024,” the SB Nation scribe noted.
Trading for a receiver, if history is any guide, would be the Patriots’ best option. The franchise has for years failed significantly when it comes to developing receivers through the draft. The last Patriots receiver acquired through the draft to record a 1,000-yard season remains Julian Edelman who was drafted in 2009 â in the seventh round with the 232nd overall pick, so it would be difficult to argue that the Patriots initially had Edelman pegged for greatness.
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