The New England Patriots' draft:
(traded away LG Joe Thuney & 2021 5th for QB Andy Dalton & pick 65)
23 WR Tee Higgins
65 QB Jake Fromm
87 WR Tyler Johnson
98 EDGE Darrell Taylor
100 ILB Logan Wilson
The Patriots have a lot of work to do this offseason. They lost Brady, their receiving corps leaves a lot to be desired, their front 7 lost LB Jamie Collins, EDGE Kyle Van Noy, and LB Elandon Roberts, their O line lost G/C Ted Karras & it's unclear if C David Andrews will be able to play this year, they're up against the salary cap this year, and many of their better players are old and/or in the last year of their contract including franchise tagged LG Joe Thuney and 34-year-old WR Julian Edelman.
QB has to be a focus of any team's plan, so let's start there. If you don't have a good QB, the main options, roughly, are to go big (with an early draft pick or a big trade or FA contract), to take a bunch of shots (at not-too-costly guys who have a chance to be the guy), or to be patient (and have a bad QB for some years until you get a chance to go big). The Patriots don't the resources to go big, and they are too competitive to just be patient, so I wanted to take some shots. Multiple shots, since none of them have great odds of panning out. If none do then NE will be forced to be patient.
So my first move was the Thuney trade, which wound up yielding two shots at QB in Dalton and Fromm. Moving on from his franchise tag contract opened up some cap room for Dalton, and given the team's situation for this year it didn't make much sense to pay to keep Thuney around for just one season - NE should either trade him or sign him long term. Trade was the only option allowed in this mock, so I went with it. I was able to get an early enough pick in return so that I'd likely have a shot at either Hurts or Fromm, the two day 2 QBs who have the most promise in my eyes. Fromm was the only one left when that pick came up, which gives New England Stidham, Dalton, and Fromm as their 3 shots at QB. All three have the virtue of fitting into something close to the scheme that the Patriots were running with Brady, which is convenient especially when you don't know which one will be your guy. Belichick, McDaniels, and co. would've been up for trying to build an offense around Hurts, but this makes things easier.
Building a receiving corps was the next biggest priority, since the impact of the lack of receivers was very apparent with Brady last year and will make things even worse as the Patriots try to sort out their QB situation. In a real life it would be nice to trade down from 23 given the depth of this WR class, but I wanted to keep things moving so I just took a WR there. The Patriots seem to prefer to save resources by getting a relatively cheap high-volume shifty WR in the slot, while sometimes using more premium resources on receivers who can threaten the defense more down the field, so I chose to spend this premium pick on Higgins over Shenault (on the whole I think they're both in the same tier as each other, as well as the top players who were left at 23 at other positions). Harry might be a similar player, but I have my doubts about him and if they both pan out I wouldn't mind having two. By pick 87, getting another WR was a less pressing need (but still something that the offensive could definitely benefit from) and Tyler Johnson was a great value as one of the most productive WRs in college football over the past 2 years so I doubled up at WR. That gives the Patriots future QB Higgins, Harry, Johnson, and maybe some of the other guys on their roster like Edelman, Sanu, or Meyers.
This left a couple compensatory picks at the end of the 3rd to address other positions. I strongly considered O line there, might have taken a center there if I had more inside info on Andrews's health or if Hennessy or Biadasz offered more positional flexibility, and maybe should've just gone with LG Jonah Jackson. Also considered TE, but not that thrilled with any of the players. Ended up using both picks on the front 7 to acquire a bull rusher and a tackling machine. One more shot to add a potential starter in rd 4, then no picks till rd 6 where NE has 7 picks to use on dart throws and special teamers (maybe PK Rodrigo Blankenship if he falls to 195, or close enough to be worth trading up for).