Welcome everybody to Patriots Draft Countdown, presented by Bud Light.

We are coming to you from the 2026 Scouting Combine here in Indianapolis. And we're getting things started. I came a little bit late. Look who's here. Weather. Sure, if you're in New England, you experience some of that. But we are here. This is my six combine, very excited. And especially this year, we got to talk to Mike Ravelble today. I got to talk to some other people as well.

We'll have those interviews coming up for you. But first things first, today was a big day for me because it was the defensive front seven. It's the linebackers. It's the defensive tackles. It's the edges. All positions of varying needs, especially edge, though. And I got to start off the top. We heard R. Mason Thomas' name mentioned a couple times.

He's a guy that plays with that Mike Frable style.

Heron. especially Edge, though. And I got to start off the top. We heard R. Mason Thomas' name mentioned a couple times.

He's a guy that plays with that Mike Frable style, hair on fire, balls to the wall.

Not only him, but there's a number of guys.

Keen Mesidor, another one that pops up.

But some options potentially for the Patriots in this Edge class at the end of the first round.

Yeah, we've talked to multiple people now here at the Combine on the Patriots in this edge class at the end of the first round. Yeah, we've talked to multiple people now here at the Combine on the Patriots organization,

whether it's Elliott Wolf or Mike Rabel.

They all have pointed to this edge class as a position of depth and strength in this draft class.

So that seems to be kind of the buzz of the combine right now is how many different edge rushers there are.

Maybe some saying as many as 20 in the top 100 could go in this draft.

So it's a big number.

And I think the two parts of that, though, are it's a flavors thing, right?

You know, which ice cream flavor is it that you want in terms of the skill sets?

But also, you know, when is the best time to pounce on one of those guys? Because there is so much depth, do you wait till day two of the draft and let it kind of fall to you or do you take a player up there at 31? So I, there's a bunch of different options. I'll just throw Cassius Howell in there as well from Texas A&M, who, you know,

we might do the short arms thing again with him. So yay, lucky us. But, yeah, you know, there's so many different things that go into it in terms of playstyle, body type, that could make an edge rusher, a Patriot edge rusher, but not people next to us, the chiefs eddressers, the Raiders, you know, everybody's got a different kind of thing. Yeah, Raiders edge rusher, maybe we could work out a deal for... We've been trying to negotiate that. I don't know if their content team can make that deal, but we'll get to work on that. So Mike Brable did take to the podium today as well. We got a chance to talk to him,

but some of the things that stood out from the podium portion, because you guys will see our interview with him in a second. Two things I want to highlight, Ev. One was that, and it's something I kind of thought, too, was the tight end class. And we know Mike Vrabel played a little tight end, So maybe he's got an eye for those tight ends, but it's a position in need.

You know, Austin Hooper is a free agent.

Hunter Henry getting up there a little bit.

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