Patriots aim to become an attractive free agency destination again

Head coach Jerod Mayo wants his team to “get guys that are magnets” in the NFL Draft.

The New England Patriots entered free agency among the league leaders in available resources, but ended up not making any splash outside acquisitions. Part of it had to do with a strategy focusing primarily on re-signings, but it is not hard to also question the attractiveness of the Patriots as a marquee landing spot in Year 1 of a major rebuild.

With Tom Brady long gone and Bill Belichick also out of the picture now, the team’s new head coach knows that finding those pull factors again will be crucial moving forward.

“When you go through the draft, you want to get guys that are magnets,” Jerod Mayo told reporters at the NFL annual meeting in Orlando, FL, last week.

“I played with the ultimate magnet in Tom Brady where guys wanted to play for Tom, with Tom, and with the team. It kind of gets skewed, and now it’s the other end of the spectrum where, what pieces do we have to attract those outside guys? If we draft a guy, you’re coming here. So, that has to be our philosophy as we continue to put this thing together.”

The Patriots were involved with some big names on the free agency market in mid-March, most notably former Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Calvin Ridley. They were unable to land him, however, and he ended up signing a four-year, $92 million contract with the Tennessee Titans.

Why was New England unable to bring him aboard despite its resources and apparent willingness to spend them?

Despite team owner Robert Kraft’s rather curious claim about Ridley’s “girlfriend” (who is actually his wife) wanting to stay in the South rather than come to the Northeast, one has to believe that money was the true driving factor in this decision. The Patriots were ultimately unwilling to meet his demands, which may in part have been inflated by the organization not having those high-profile people within its ranks right now.

The Patriots, frankly, are not in the position to acquire players based on their status as annual Super Bowl — something that was the case during the Brady/Belichick dynasty. The lure of a ring is currently not part of the equation at One Patriot Place at the moment.

“There were various reasons why guys didn’t sign with us,” said Mayo. “Once again, the unknown is scary for a lot of people and I would say, even in our building right now, it’s still unknown. Like, will I be a good head coach? I don’t know. Hopefully. I think I can be. Will Eliot be a good GM, or whatever he is in his role? I don’t know, we’ll see what happens with that.

“It’s going to be a process.”