Jerod Mayo discusses the Patriots suddenly crowded -- but "very strong" -- quarterback room

FOXBORO -- The No. 1 priority for the Patriots entering the 2024 NFL Draft was to get themselves a quarterback of the future. The team hopes they found that in Drake Maye, whom they drafted third overall, but it never hurts to take a few cracks at the most important position on the field.

So the Pats went out on Saturday and drafted Joe Milton III out of Tennessee in the sixth round, adding another quarterback with a big arm to their QB room.

That quarterback room in Foxboro is getting a bit crowded, with five QBs now on the depth chart. Maye and Milton will now be joining veteran Jacoby Brissett, Bailey Zappe, and Nathan Rourke in New England. 

The Patriots aren't going to keep five quarterbacks all off-season, are they? Probably not. But all that company breeds competition, and new head coach Jerod Mayo loves himself some competition.

"You want to have a strong group," Mayo said Saturday after New England wrapped up the draft. "You want to have a strong room and I would say the way it looks now, we have a very strong room."

The Patriots are extremely high on Maye, who has loads of upside after his two years at North Carolina. But the 21-year-old might need a year on the bench to fix some issues with his mechanics, mainly his footwork, which will likely lead to the veteran Brissett leading the way at quarterback in 2024.

As for adding the big-armed Milton, the Patriots saw a good football player available and added him to the mix.

"We're in the business of trying to get good football players through the door, and Milton happens to be one of them," said Mayo. "Obviously he understands we took a quarterback at three in Drake. One thing that we preach is competition. Everything is about competition, and nothing is given. All of it's earned. That's how we thought about the process."

The Patriots may go into training camp with a quintet of quarterbacks, but the group will get whittled down throughout the summer.

Rourke -- who played in the Canadian Football League in 2021 and 2022 -- will likely be the first to go from the crowded group, and it will be interesting to see how long Zappe's third season with the Patriots lasts. He was cut ahead of the 2023 season and brought back on the practice squad, but ended up starting six games (and making 10 appearances) as the Mac Jones era came to a crashing halt. 

Brissett and Maye are obvious locks, and Milton and his booming arm will add another interesting wrinkle to the battle inside New England's QB room throughout the summer. We'll see how it all plays out over the next few months.