A few weeks earlier, Joe Milton found a new team in the 2024 NFL Draft when he was selected in the sixth round by the New England Patriots. With former Vol Jerod Mayo taking the head coaching position, the Patriots, embarking on a completely new chapter in their history, also selected North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye with the third overall pick.
There’s also seasoned quarterback Jacoby Brissett on the team.
For Milton, it’s a good starting point with a possible future as a backup over the following few campaigns. Unquestionably, you had the impression that some teams would be enamored with Milton’s physical tools.
That team was the Patriots, and Eliot Wolf appears to have been their acting decision-maker.
Joe Milton was a former quarterback for Tennessee, but the Patriots de facto general manager Eliot Wolf claimed that Milton was too good to pass up.
“You know I arrived early and saw Joe warm up before I got to see him play live in the final game of the season versus Vanderbilt.””Watching him toss the football is amazing,” Wolf said on The Adam Schefter Podcast. He weighs 245 pounds, is athletic, and his arm is like a rocket. His height is 6 feet 5 inches. He participated in that offense, which is not an NFL offensive, under Heupel. Nonetheless, we think there are certain elements there that we may improve and utilize.
“It was one of those selections where, you know, his talent was too great to pass up.”
Wolf highlighted Alex Van Pelt and Ben McAdoo as reliable candidates when selecting an offensive assistant.
We had all been kind of waiting for this kind of performance, and a Vanderbilt team that was 2–9 was the ideal venue to see it. In 2023, Milton, all things considered, never really managed to fit the puzzle together. Even though he completed the game with 2,813 yards and 20 touchdowns passing, the passing attack was significantly worse than it was in 2022 when Hendon Hooker was starting.
Despite Milton’s incredible arm, the most frustrating thing was that there was no downfield passing game. Compared to Hooker’s 2022 (1st overall) average of 9.5 yards per attempt, he only averaged 7.9 yards per attempt (48th overall).
As Wolf noted, Milton is now playing in a true pro-style offense, which differs significantly from Heupel’s approach.
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