Field Yates on Ja'Lynn Polk’s high ceiling and when to start Drake Maye

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Welcome into the next Pat's ORG podcast. I'm Phil Perry PERSON. We've got a great episode lined up for you today because we're talking to Field Yates of ESPN ORG. He's got all kinds of draft intel that he's going to be able to share with us. He was all over the draft for ESPN for ABC, podcasting all the time with the legend Mel Kiper PERSON. And so, you know that he has a lot of great insight on these Patriots ORG picks.We're focusing on the top of the draft because there's one player in particular that Field absolutely loves for the Patriots ORG. It's their second round pick, wide receiver Jalen Polk out of Washington ORG, have the comps that have been thrown Polk PERSON's way been fair why does field yates feel as though jalen Polk could be one of the five best receivers taken in this year's draft class ultimately that's how we'll view him boy that'd be a home run for the patriots he was taken within the top 10 he was one of the first 10 receivers taken in this year'sdraft but if he was in that tier right below, guys like Malik neighbors and Marvin Harrison Jr. And his teammate, Roma Dunzee, that's a home run for the Patriots ORG. So I'm going to get all sorts of Polk PERSON insight. We're going to talk about Drake May, of course, and just big picture with this Patriots ORG draft. Have they done enough to lay the foundation for the next great Patriots ORG team? Great, great guest for us today.It's Field Yates out of ESPN ORG. Let's get to that conversation. Why keep you waiting? Let's get to it right now. Very excited now to have with us on the next Pat's podcast, the great Field Yates, ESPN ORG, the first draft podcast, the fantasy focuspodcast, all things NFL ORG for the worldwide leader. Field PERSON, thanks for being with us, bud.

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Feel great to be on with you. It's been a little while since you and I had the chance to cross paths, but always looking forward to talking to all things, Patriots ORG with you, and a lot going on up there in Foxborough these days. So much going on.

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There's a GM search.

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That's not really a GM search that's happening right now. That's just kept up busy the last couple of days here. But

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the draft is is still something that we're picking away at. You are the perfect person for us to

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ask about this draft class because you were all over all of these guys and you were such a key part to the draft coverage that weekend that I'm sure you've still got hundreds of names swimming around in that brain of yours.

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But I just want to ask you right off the top, when you look at the Patriots ORG draft classes,

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knowing this team as well as you do, what was your favorite pick?

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What was the best move of the weekend for the New England Patriots ORG?

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Well, that's a good question. When you put favorite pick, so I think the low-hanging fruit answer is, of course, Drake May PERSON because he was the highest drafted player, which ostensibly should represent the player that ends up having the greatest impact. And I do think that's where things will shake out with Drake and the Patriots ORG, because I was a big believer in Drake from the start of the process, really since the day after the regular season was over,and we had the non-playoff team draft order. I stayed in my case then, and I felt good about it throughout the process, and ended up playing out this way, was that, you know, the order of the first three picks should be quarterback, quarterback, quarterback, and the Patriot NORP should simply take whichever one was left over for them because all three merited top three overall pick consideration. So there was no consolation prize in this draft. But the player that, you know, and this ended up working out well for a conversation like this covering the Patriots, that I would say probably was my favorite pick was Jalen Polk PERSON.You know, in the draft analyst role, it's important to try to size up the draft accurately early as best you can. You want to make sure that you are talking about players that you think will go in the first round as much as you possibly can and also making sure that you actually know which players will go on the first round because it sort of shows that you are evaluating players and in line with how the league thinks. It's also important in my estimation to have some players that you say to yourself, I don't care if this guy goes in the first round or undrafted. I just like this player a lot.And Jalen Polk was the player that fit that category for me. There were a bunch of them, but he was part of what we called my guys, a segment that me and Kuiper did on first draft as we got closer and closer to the drafts. And it was, the conceit was, hey, guys that I don't think will go in the first round, but I'll hound the table for if I were in the proverbial draft room. Polk wound up at 42nd on my big board. It goes 37th overall. So right about the proper range of where he ended up going versus where I had him ranked, it was a deep, deep wide receiver class, obviously.And he was, I think, the seventh or eighth receiver taken in this year's draft class. But if you told me, you know, three years from now, he's one of the four or five best wideouts from this class. It's going to be really hard to crack that top three, given the three players that went in the first nine picks. But if you told me he looks like a value in three or four years, wouldn't surprise me a bit.

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So I want to dig a little bit deeper on that. Why do you say he could end up potentially being the fourth or fifth guy? There are you see some great athletes in this draft. It looked like the Patriots ORG tried to move up to maybe get one of those athletes. Maybe somebody like Xavier Leggett, South Carolina GPE, just a bigger body,

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four three, 40 type of specimen physically. Why could Polk PERSON actually enter into the conversation

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as the best of the rest outside of that top three in your opinion? I know you had bought up all the Jalen Polk PERSON stock before the draft.

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Like you were driving the bus on the Jalen Polk PERSON bandwagon. So why do you feel that way about this guy? Yeah, Polk PERSON isn't an elite athlete, but he's also not a bad athlete, which I think has become one of the misconceptions about these players that aren't Malik PERSON neighbors type explosive or his teammate Brian Thomas Jr. PERSON type explosive. Or like you mentioned, Xavier Leggett, who 6'1, 221 pounds, running a 4-3-940.That's special right there. That obviously is terrific. You can't coach it. You can't teach it. But Geelen Polk PERSON's a solid athlete. He was a good athlete, 45240, 37-inch vertical.I think that was a half an inch ahead of his teammate, Roma Dunzei PERSON, who no one talks about Odunze PERSON's athletic ability and anything other than a positive light. So, Hulk PERSON's a good athlete for sure. I've used this analogy a lot. I won't have that many more chances to use it. So I'll go back to it one more time.Polk PERSON is kind of like what I would say is an old school MBA post player where it's not a lot of flash, not a lot of sizzle, but a lot of substance. You know, an NBA ORG post player, he got your buckets, you know, 10 for 14 from the field consistently. And none of those shots came from further than five feet away from the basket. Polk PERSON just runs good routes, makes contested catches, has awesome body control, very good after the catch, incredibly tough. It has a lot of maturity to him as well. Wherever he's gone, he's thrived,began his college career at Texas Tech for one season, transferred to Washington ORG, and a lot of respect for a guy who very early on during his playing career at Washington ORG got hurt, battled his way back from a shoulder injury that a lot of people thought might have just said, hey, you know what, we'll see you again next year. But I think his determination, his work ethic, all really showed out to Washington ORG during that process.And when you've got a young quarterback and Drake's, I think the second youngest of the six, ended up going in the first 12 picks behind only J.J. McCarthy PERSON, you need to surround him with the right kind of people. That's not just the coaches. It's not just a good offensive line. It's not just talented players, but it's also guys who have that right mentality. So I thought the mental for Jalen Polk PERSON was also very good on top of the excellent physical traits as well. I love the NBA ORG post player comp.

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Like if the Patriots have found their Kevin, if he's Kevin McAil PERSON,

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like they'll take that. Like that, that works. Yeah, if you go back and watch them,

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though, like there are some big plays, no doubt. The semi-final game against Texas GPE, the opening

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drive, long, long catch. A lot of it was after the catch as well. But there's just a lot

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of stuff too where it's, you know, playing the perimeter, 15-yard out route, 12-yard comeback, you name it, right?

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It's just stuff that it's going to move the chains. And, you know, those Patriots offense, which really have to grind for every single point that scored last season, needs some guys that can make life a little bit easier. And there's going to be a real trust, I think, developed early on between Drake May and Jalen Pol PERSON. He's the kind of player where this is another football cliche that's probably overused. But, you, but even when he's covered, he's open, you know, some people hate that phrase. But with Polk PERSON, you know, I call the hands like vice grips.It's not, we think of catches like the O'Dell Beckham Jr. two finger catch, which are, you know, highlight real plays that will live on, you know, really the internet forever, but we saw in Sports in our top 10 for felt like, you know, months straight. Those are great. I'm not saying those don't matter, but that's not the only way you define good catches. It's like to me, quality catches and having great hands is the ability to catch a football thrown a bit behind your body, having the ability to make tough catches in traffic, having new ability to adjust mid-air.And I thought that Jalen Polk PERSON just really showed up in that category consistently throughout his entire Washington and Texas Tech ORG career.

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So the two names that I heard that I was given soon after the Patriots ORG made the pick with Polk Field PERSON in terms of cops. And we know comparison is the thief of joy. Like we don't want to linger too much on these. But I did find them interesting.One of them because he's a former Patriot was Jacobi Myers PERSON. That was one name that came back to me. Just, you know, tough, we'll block in the run game, reliable quarterback's best friend kind of guy. We'll do that dirty work over the middle. The other one was a guy who actually was on the Bengals when Patriots ORG offensive coordinator now, Alex Van Pelt was with the Bengals, Tyler Boyd PERSON, who had a couple of back-to-back, you know,

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thousand-yard seasons when those two overlap there in CINCy.

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Are those fair comps for you? Do you feel like there's a little more, you know, people here love Jacoby Myers PERSON, but he's, he was what he was sort of after the catch and he wasn't, you know, you wouldn't label him as like the biggest sort of explosive threat that you've ever seen. So what do you think of those two comps?

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Is there another one that might even work better for you? Yeah, I think that there's probably more upside for Jalen Polth than what Jacobi Myers was with the Patriots ORG, a guy who was very reliable, and that also applies to Polk. But with Jacobi PERSON, I think part of the reason why he did not end up sticking around with the Patriots ORG, and obviously that was an ill-fitted decision. But the idea was how far you're willing to extend for a player who may not be a game changer? And Tyler Boy, you know, the tricky one now is that people are going to think about the Tyler Boy that we haveseen over the past couple of seasons, a player who's really solid but kind of had settled into appropriately that third wide-out role was Cincinnati GPE. And now, of course, we'll be a Tennessee Titan. I don't, you know, I, my friend Matt Miller PERSON, my colleague Matt Miller is the comp king. He's so great at just throwing out names that, you know, I think that the trick with comparisons and the reason why I've, I haven't necessarily made myself the comp Prince is that, you know, no one likes comps where it's like, yeah, you know, he, Jalen Polk PERSON comps too and justmake up some like, you know, third whiteout who played for, you know, a one likes comps where it's like, yeah, you know, he, Jalen Polk PERSON comps too and just make up some like, you know, a third wide out who played for, you know, a few years and then phased out, right? Or you don't want to call him like, you know, Puka Nakuwa PERSON because he's not an elite athlete, but he could be a really good player because Puck PERSON could just had, I don't know, if not the best rookie wide receiver season ever, one of the top five at the very worst. So I don't know that I have aperfect comparison for Jalen Polk. I think those are relatively reasonable ones. Jacoby Myers PERSON, maybe last year's version of Myers that we saw in Las Vegas, which I thought was more explosive than we saw in New England might be a good one there. But going 37th overall, I think is indicative of a guy that I do think the Patriots believe has a bit more juice. He's not going to be the kind of guy that's going to consistently run away from players in the open field. But I think there's some toughness there. There'ssome bursts there, some juice there, especially prior to the catch. And I know Patriots ORG fans, I've seen one of the pushbacks has been like, did we just draft Nikiel Harry 2.0? PERSON And I don't know that the, I think he's a better athlete. I do think that with Jalen Polk PERSON. And I'm not saying it's just about how you approach the game. But one thing's clear, like Jalen Polk's PERSON mentality is a different stratosphere than McKeel Harry, a guy who I think needed to kind of be pushed consistently at every juncture.I don't think you're going to have to worry about that with Jail and Polk PERSON. So I do think there is, this term has become very common now. But there's definitely some dog in Jalen Polk PERSON that I think really serves him well to maybe make an immediate impact because, well, the Patriots ORG kind of have, you know, strength in numbers approach at wide receiver. There's not, at least in my estimation right now, a clear cut numberone guy who was going to be the, you know, the target king for New England. And I think there's a chance that Jill and Polk PERSON, with some things breaking in his favor, could have a pretty prominent

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role right away. Patriots and I'd love to hear that. I'm glad we got to dig a little deeper on Polk PERSON because I know what a big fan of Polk PERSON's game, you are field. So I'm glad we got to hit on that. I want to hit on, of course, though, that first pick. And you mentioned Drake May PERSON and how you were a believer in Drake May. We already, of course, we've already zoomed like all the way through OTAs and training camp. And now we're talking about week one.And who's going to be the starting quarterback week one? The question I wanted to ask you was, if he is starting week one field, he will have done what, in your opinion?

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What I think has a pretty decent chance to happen during the preseason.

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And you and I know this because we've seen so many moments, you know, good and bad, right?

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I mean, you and I were on the beat together when, like, Zach Sudfeld PERSON was catching past his left and right and looking like the next bronch or something, right? We have also seen players that struggled in the preseason. I remember back in this is a deep cut, but like, I remember Matt Castle in 2008, the year he ended up starting 15 games was like completely like unpredictable in preseason. He ended up playing pretty well there, right? You know, filling in for Brady in very unusualcircumstances, obviously. So we've seen preseason prove to be worth something or nothing, but with Drake, and I'm not, this is not trying to become a Drake versus Mac Jones PERSON conversation. But the Patriots ORG fans are about to witness a different level of arm strength and zip. And arm talent, which I know some people hate that term as well. But, you know, Drake PERSON's going to have some absolutely jaw-dropping throws at some point during training camp, whether it's throws way down the field, whether it's throws with great accuracy, whether it's throws on the run. I mean, he's a special thrower of the football. His2023 tape keeps getting dissected as if, you know, Drake May PERSON played terribly. You know, he just was not as good as he was in 2022, in part because that 22 season was absolutely ridiculous. He and James Winston, the only player to win all four major offensive awards, which included both rookie and, you know, all-season awards for ACC. So all-year awards, I should say, for the ACC. So to me, what Drake PERSON brings to the table is indisputable. It's going to be refining some things. I still, right now, this is a May 8 prediction, Phil PERSON, think this is goingto end up being Jacoby Brissette coming out of the gates for the Patriots ORG at quarterback, in part because I think, and I feel like I've heard Mayo and also Elliot Wolf sort of suggest this, is that like, I think Jacoby's sort of standing within the league is pretty well established that he's the kind of guy that, like, he's kind of maximized his ability consistently, even if he hasn't stuck around anywhere. I feel like there's a lot of respect in that locker room for Jacoby. And while I don't think anybody has any illusions thatJacoby Brissette's going to become this Patriots 10-year fixture at quarterback, might be enough to kind of keep you in it early in the season. And then at some point, if this team is, you know, if this team's two and five, or if this team is struggling to score offensively, you can pull the Drake PERSON car. I just think that it's a lot easier to be patient and eventually press the eject button on, you know, the rookie quarterback who's been stuck inside the car seat as opposed to,you know, starting the rookie early, seeing him struggle and then trying to put him on the bench and potentially compromising sort of his mental state of mind. Yeah, I think that's a,

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that is a huge key to all of this is once you get them in there, really hard, really hard to

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take him out, you know, and it would have to go really poorly, which obviously nobody there is rooting for.

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Sort of a big picture question. No, this can't be answered. You know, with tremendous accuracy, although if you do answer it with tremendous accuracy,

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like when we find out years from now that you have hit on this, we will come back and we will give you all your flowers because you'll be deserving of them.

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But this is what Patriots ORG fans want to know, right? Did they lay the foundation for the next great Patriots ORG team with this draft? We've seen so many great Patriots drafts in the past 2010 with McCordy PERSON and Grancowski, E.O1 with Seymour and Light PERSON. Is there a chance that this draft ends up being one of

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those types of drafts for New England? There's a chance for a very specific reason. I'll say this. I view a successful draft class, somewhere which, let's call it three and a half, because it depends on how many picks you actually have, but three and a half players making it to a second deal that is not like you have literally zero offers elsewhere and we're keeping you around, right? So like the 2020 draft class for the Patriots, that's a foundation type draft class between Dugger and Nguyenu and Anthony Jennings PERSON. I think I'm forgetting somebody else from that class,but, you know, like three guys or four guys, retain, like, that's a pretty good hit. The reason why this Patriots ORG draft, but you need to do that in successive drafts. Like, I think it's two or three. I think, like, Buffalo ORG's done a really good job with this. Kansas City has done a really good job with this Baltimore ORG. No surprise.The teams that I'm talking about are at the top of the heap, or at least have a really good chance to be, once again, this season. But I think what really can make this one, the one that's different is just that Drake Maine can be a singular force, right? And I'm a huge believer in Drake PERSON. I felt, you know, my rank of the quarterbacks was Caleb, Jaden, Drake PERSON, but I truly believe the upside for Drake is as good as either of those players. I mean that. This is not lip service to Patriots fans. Drake at 21 years old with elite athleticism and excellent, an excellent arm and armstringand off the charts character. Like all of those things are like already in the toolbox. Those cannot be coached. Those are just those are there. Now it's up to the Patriots and everybody around Drake May PERSON to kind of get him to take all of those great tools and actually like sort of set up a process here. Like get on the assembly line and start, you know, putting together good throws consecutively and being a little bit more refined than he waslast season. And so I think it's going to take like a full team effort. I guess that's a little bit too cliche. But, you know, it's going to be, it's going to require some discipline from a lot of different parties. Like, to go back to the question we were just discussing,it's going to be hard to resist the temptation of playing Drake May because of the fact that he's a third overall pick. The highest pick the team has taken since Bledso in 93. So there's going to be some temptation that you've got to resist, but if you're starting to feel like Drake PERSON's sitting on the bench, even if it's for five games, might wind up proving to be one of the most impactful things for his development,you've got to find a way to resist temptation. I know that C.J. Stroud wound up starting right away last year for the Texans ORG. But D'Amico Rhymes PERSON end, it was a linebacker. It's like Rod Mayo PERSON played for the team or coach for the team that he spent much of his career for. In the case of Mayo PERSON, the only team he ever played. He made sure, and he was very clear, last off season, it's got to be earned, right?And this is not going to be a handout because you're the number two pick in the draft. Maybe people thought that was him being disingenuous. I don't know. But I felt like Houston, and maybe this is not going to be a handout because you're the number two pick in the draft. Maybe people thought that was him being disingenuous. I don't know. But I felt like Houston ORG. And maybe this is a bit of me kind of like retroactively fitting what I believe into what actually took place. But I thought they did a good job of slowly bringing CJ Stroud along during the offseason, making him earn it.And then once he kind of got going and got rolling, doing everything they could to maximize what his strengths were. He's got a lot of those, so it's a little bit easier to do than many quarterbacks. But that, to me, is the model the Patriots ORG have to follow is you got to resist temptation on the short-term gain because you have to be concerned about a decade plus of Drake May. This is not about how he performs in 2024. I know Patriots fans are going to be sitting here comparing Drake PERSON's successto the success of the other quarterbacks in this year's class. I think there's a pretty darn good chance of JJ McCarthy coming out of the gates looks really good in Minnesota, not because JJ PERSON isn't a good player, but because he's got Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison PERSON and T.J. Hawkinson and Brian O'Neill and Christian Derisaw and Aaron Jones, guys at the like five or six key pivotal spots to help a quarterback look really good. So for the Patriots ORG, it's ignoring that kind ofinformation and that kind of analysis and instead being focused on finding a way to get Drake PERSON to be the player that I really do believe he has within him.

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Field Yates PERSON, you are a champion. You are such a busy guy. We so appreciate your time. This was fantastic, bud, we really do. Thank you so much because you got so much on your plate.

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So to carve out a little bit for us. This has been tremendous. Thanks, buddy.

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Glad to do it any time, Phil PERSON, and be well. Talk to you again soon.

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All right, man. See, bud.

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Great stuff there from Field PERSON. Really right, man. See, bud. Great stuff there. Frogfield ORG really appreciate him giving some time to us. Talk about some of these Patriots ORG picks and about the draft. In general, I just feel as though there is so much to dig into when it comes to this Patriots draft and these players that they took seven of them on the offensive side of the ball. How it impacts the roster, how some of these players should be handled, what their roles should be what makes them tick. This is the sort of stuff that we're going to be diving into here on next Pats over the next few weeks and months.We're going to continue to bring on some great, great guests for you to give us even more intel on these players. Drake May, Jalen Polk, Javon Baker PERSON, I think we need to be talking about quite a bit. Really interested to see what happens with him. Rookie minicamp is coming up this week. This weekend, we'll have access to some of these players on the ability to watch these guys out on the practice field.So so much more to share with you on this Patriots ORG draft class. Just giving you a little taste from one of the best in the business in Field D8 PRODUCT. So appreciate you listening. Thanks to John the Skull Crusher, Henry PERSON, as always. And keep an eye out for the next edition of Nextpats PRODUCT. We'll be hitting you with another episode very, very soon. We'll talk to you.Look around. You can find cars like these on AutoTrader PRODUCT, like that car right in your tail.

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