Why the Patriots were drawn to quarterback Joe Milton in the NFL Draft

New England selected the Tennessee passer in the sixth round.

The New England Patriots entered the 2024 NFL Draft with a major need at quarterback, and they wasted no time to address it. With the third overall pick in the first round, North Carolina’s Drake Maye was brought aboard in hopes of stabilizing the most important position on the field.

But even with Maye added to the mix and holes across the roster, the Patriots were not done at quarterback. They selected another prospect on Day 3 of the draft: Tennessee’s Joe Milton was picked 193rd overall.

Why did New England go after two quarterbacks, though? According to director of scouting Eliot Wolf, who had final say in the draft room, Milton’s talent was too enticing to pass up at this point in the draft.

“I had the opportunity to watch Joe play live, the last game of the year against Vanderbilt,” Wolf said during a recent appearance on the Adam Schefter Podcast.

“I got there really early and watched him warm up, and just watching him throw the football is unbelievable. He’s 6-5, 245 pounds. He’s got a rocket for an arm. He’s athletic. He played in [Josh] Heupel’s offense there, which is not an NFL offense, but we feel like there’s some things that we can work with and develop. It was just one of those picks where there was too much talent in him to pass that up.”

The game against Vanderbilt was arguably the best performances of Milton’s college career. Completing 22 of 32 pass attempts, he finished with 383 passing yards and four touchdowns. He also scored another two TDs on his five rushing attempts.

That outing alone does not tell the whole story of Milton’s six-year college career, which saw him struggle with consistency in his 21 total starts between Michigan and Tennessee. It did, however, show the talent and high ceiling he does possess.

The Patriots were obviously drawn to that late in the draft, but they also felt confident in their ability to develop both Milton and Drake Maye.

“Having worked with Ben McAdoo and Alex Van Pelt before, and they learned from Mike McCarthy — I think Mike McCarthy is a great quarterback developer — they have the quarterback school stuff that they did with McCarthy,” Wolf exaplined. “T.C. McCartney is our quarterback coach, they will sort of implement that stuff for these guys and we’ll see what they can do with them.

“But having worked with those guys before made it easier and organizationally more confident to be able to take a raw guy like Joe.”