After the New England Patriots worked out former Louisville Cardinals quarterback Lamar Jackson twice in the pre-draft process, many drew the seemingly obvious conclusion that the Pats would spend one of their two first-round picks on Jackson and secure the heir-apparent to Tom Brady. Long story short: they didn’t.

After trading Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett, the Patriots are left without a young quarterback to groom behind the seemingly ageless Brady, and they should feel the need to look for one in the next two rounds.

As I showed in an article a few years back, the average career length, years of replacement-level value, and years of elite-level value for quarterbacks drop significantly after the third round of the draft. Our own Jim Sannes profiled the non-first round talents who stand out in this class, particularly highlighting Mason Rudolph, J.T. Barrett, Mike White, Luke Falk, and Kyle Lauletta.

There’s a good chance one of these young men will join the long list of NFL players to hold Tom Brady’s clipboard, and just maybe they’ll inherit his locker someday.