A year after Trey Flowers left the Patriots in free agency, could New England finally take his replacement at defensive end in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft?
NFL Media draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah believes Iowa’s A.J. Epenesa is the most obvious fit for the Patriots at the end of the first round, where New England picks 23rd overall.
“I went back and I posted some of it, but I went back and looked back at a lot of the notes that I had been given when I was with the Baltimore Ravens from one of our scouts who had been with Coach (Bill) Belichick, and it was a presentation from 1991 on what Coach values at every position,” Jeremiah said Thursday on a conference call. “And when it talked about edge rushers, it talked about his preference for size over speed out there and guys who can hold the point of attack in the run game, and they can collapse the pocket, they’re power players. And that, to me, if you’re drawing up a description of A.J. Epenesa, it was literally what they were looking for. Now, that was 1991. That was a long time ago, but those Patriots defenses seem to all feature this type of player. And then you add into the fact that he played for Kirk Ferentz. And Kirk Ferentz and his relationship with Coach Belichick. All of that seemed to me like this guy was meant to be a New England Patriot. It just makes too much sense.”
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Epenesa didn’t test particularly well at 6-foot-5, 275 pounds, running a 5.04-second 40-yard dash, 1.79-second 10-yard split, 7.34-second 3-cone drill, 4.46-second short shuttle, 32.5-inch vertical leap and 9-feet, 9-inch broad jump with 17 bench press reps of 225 pounds with 34.5-inch arms. He doesn’t fit the Patriots’ typical testing standards for a drafted edge defender, but he does have the right height, weight and arm length. He’s also bigger than a player the Patriots typically draft at defensive end. So, the Patriots might be willing to forgive his slightly slower runs and shorter jumps.
He produced well in his final two years at Iowa with 104 total pressures on 694 pass-rush snaps. He had 22 sacks and 30.5 tackles for loss in that same span.
Belichick and Ferentz do have a strong relationship from their time together in the early 1990s with the Cleveland Browns, but the Patriots have drafted just one player from Iowa since Belichick joined the team in 2000. That was guard Mike Elgin, a seventh-round pick in 2007. Elgin never played a game for the Patriots.
The Patriots have signed several Iowa products to their roster since 2000, however, including James Ferentz, Scott Chandler, Cole Croston, Adrian Clayborn, Matt Tobin, Riley McCarron and Markus Zusevics.
The Patriots currently have edge defenders John Simon, Chase Winovich, Deatrich Wise, Derek Rivers, Keionta Davis, Shilique Calhoun and Tashawn Bower on current roster. None of those players has Epenesa’s size and combination of pass-rush and edge-setting ability.
