Why do we do this “20 Under 25” voting exercise every year?
Well, yeah ... you’re right. Content. But why this content? Simple. We, as interested sports observers, love forecasting.
Consider: Despite the reality that only about 20 players from each NFL Draft class wind up being objectively good, there’s a billion-dollar industry (at least) that’s grown up around it. Because we want to know who’s next AND we want to do our own projection and analysis as well. Because God knows we could ALL do it as well as these GMs with a week of research and a draft catalog.
This series looks at who’s already here and analyzes how good they’ll get. Will they be part of championships and remembered forever? Or are they just passing through?
The Patriots currently have 10 players under 25 years old on their roster. I would love to tell you that prosperity is just around the corner. It ain’t.
Precisely two of the players -- Drake Maye and Christian Gonzalez -- look like they have Pro Bowl-level aspirations.
New England Patriots
Sadly, that constitutes an avalanche of success relative to past years. Prior to getting Maye this year and Gonzalez in 2023 (17th pick), the last homegrown player selected for the Pro Bowl was punter Jake Bailey. Other than that (I’m not counting Mac Jones getting in as an alternate), the only others in the past 12 years were J.C. Jackson, Malcolm Butler, Chandler Jones and Dont'a Hightower.
The draft drought of the past decade-plus in Foxboro has dropped New England to the dregs of the league. They’ve fallen. And they can’t get up.
For the first time since the 1960s, the Patriots may go an entire decade without being in a Super Bowl (80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s) or building one of the most talented teams in the NFL (70s).
Can Drake Maye haul them up by the scruff of their collective neck? Probably not. Consider, when the Patriots got good in Bill Belichick’s second year, Tom Brady was surrounded by future Hall of Famers (Ty Law, Richard Seymour, maybe Adam Vinatieri) and talented, blood-and-guts leaders (Lawyer Milloy, Tedy Bruschi, Willie McGinest, Troy Brown, Mike Vrabel, Matt Light).
Then, when they got great, they just kept adding with Deion Branch, Vince Wilfork, Logan Mankins, Wes Welker, etc.
They stayed great in the 2010s because they were still sharp talent-collectors at the end of the previous decade and the start of the new one. First-rounders included Jerod Mayo, Devin McCourty, Nate Solder, Hightower and Jones. Deeper in the draft, they found guys like Matthew Slater, Julian Edelman, Patrick Chung, etc.
Drew Bledsoe was taken first overall in 1993. Ben Coates and Bruce Armstrong were already there (No. 24 and No. 28 picks, respectively), Troy Brown was taken in the eighth round and the Patriots drafted McGinest, Law, Ted Johnson, Curtis Martin, Terry Glenn, Lawyer Milloy and Tedy Bruschi in the ensuing three drafts.
We can do the 70s too. What the hell? It never worked out for poor Jim Plunkett in New England after he was taken first in 1971. But when the Patriots sent Plunkett out of town in 1976, they’d drafted John Hannah, Sam Cunningham, Darryl Stingley, Steve Nelson and Russ Francis in the three previous drafts. Then they got Mike Haynes, Pete Brock and Tim Fox in 1976 and Raymond Clayborn and Stanley Morgan in 1977. Every single one of them was a first-round pick, except Nelson.
Maye, meanwhile, arrived this year with absolutely no foundational offensive pieces around him.
The best skill-position player under 25 is DeMario Douglas, a sixth-rounder from Liberty in 2023. He’s a good player. But it’s hard to build an offense around a 5-foot-8, 192-pounder if the receivers around him can’t carry the load.
The Patriots took a run at adding at wideout in the draft. But second-round pick Ja’Lynn Polk has been shockingly unproductive and mistake-prone in his first season. And fourth-rounder Javon Baker still doesn't have a catch through 13 games. Kayshon Boutte, a sixth-rounder last year, has already outperformed recently-released second-rounder Tyquan Thornton and is on his way to outdoing 2019 first-rounder N’Keal Harry. But he’s not a No. 1 receiver.
As for the offensive line, the Patriots drafted Caeden Wallace and Layden Robinson in April. In a recent press conference, Mayo stressed the importance of figuring out in the final month of the season what both players can do, because they’ve done so little in their rookie seasons.
So, as you know, all offensive hopes are tethered to Maye. If bad fortune hits and he can’t go? The gifted arm of Joe Milton -- another under-25 player -- is sitting behind Maye in position to take over. But for all his arm strength, we saw that his touch and decision-making were both a work in progress as training camp progressed.
What about the defense? Well, surprisingly, Gonzalez and cornerback Alex Austin are the only under-25 players on that side of the ball. Keion White aged out when he turned 25 a couple months back.
Gonzalez is a smooth, long, corner who -- contrary to some of the draft analysis -- is more physical than expected. He’s going to be a good player for a long time.
The Patriots have legitimately outstanding under-25 players at two of the most important positions on the field -- quarterback and cornerback. They have one objectively decent wideout in Douglas, and another one in Boutte who may be pretty good.
But the early returns on the rest of the Patriots young core are not good. So if the Patriots are looking for a slogan for the rest of the decade, this might fit: "Gonzo and Maye and then … just pray."
Editor's Note: Using the form below, you can evaluate each of the 20 Under 25 candidates “video game” style, giving each athlete a player “rating” that reflects their maximum potential in the coming years.
