What's up everybody? Welcome into the next Pat's podcast. I'm Phil Perry. Very excited to bring you this week's episode because we are still recapping the draft in a lot of ways, right? Why did this thing go down the way it did? How did it go down

the way it did? Who was in charge of this thing? If you want to ask that question, had a lot of

fun batting that thing around with a number of different people here on NBC Sports, Boston,

and 985, the sports hub. But today we're going to focus in on the third pick of this year's draft for the New England Patriots.

And in some ways, to me, it's most fascinating because not only is the player in and of himself an interesting player.

It's Eli Raritan, the tight end out of Notre Dame, a player who I think has a ton of promise at a position that is incredibly

important in Josh McDaniel's offense.

But what signals might we be able to pick up by this selection based on the players that

are already in-house for the New England Patriots?

They already have Hunter Henry.

They already have Julian Hill, who they signed in free agency. Now you're adding a third round pick, a guy who looks NFL ready in terms of

his body type, 6'5.250 pounds, almost 11-inch hands willing to block fast enough to threaten the

seam and threaten safeties down the field. There's a lot to like about Eli Raritan's game already.

And yet there's still reason to believe there's a lot of room for improvement in

Eli Raridin's game, which is what you're looking for.

That is catnip for NFL scouts and head coaches and tight ends coaches and

offensive coordinators.

And so there's a lot to like, in my opinion, about this Eli Raritan pick.

And I'm not just saying that after the fact.

If you heard Brian Hoyer and myself discuss the tight ends in this year's class and guys

that might make their way to the Patriots, you would have heard a couple of guys who

were really intrigued by Eli

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