The Patriots' interest in Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson before the 2018 NFL Draft was well-documented, and he was available both times the Patriots went on the clock in Thursday's first round.
So why didn't they grab him? Patriots director of player personnal Nick Caserio was asked about Jackson after the first round concluded late Thursday.
"There's a lot of things that we talked about. Our process is pretty thorough. We spend a lot of time on a lot of different players. There's a lot players we talked about so we picked a couple of players tonight," Caserio said. "We have an opportunity in the second round to pick another two players if we stay and pick or if we have some opportunities to potentially move some things around. There's a lot of discussion about a lot of players. We can only pick so many. In this case, we can only pick two. Sometimes, you can only pick one. We talk about a lot of guys on a pretty regular basis. It's pretty fluid. In the end, we just try to pick the players we feel are best for us."
Jackson was chosen by the Baltimore Ravens with the final pick of the first round. The Ravens traded up to get him, and Jackson admitted that falling to the 32nd pick will motivate him.
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"There is a chip on my shoulder. Both shoulders. I'm not mad. It's just motivation." Jackson said. "They're going to get a Super Bowl out of me. Believe that."
Caserio also discussed the outlook for the Patriots to obtain a quarterback in the remaining rounds of this draft. Many have speculated the Patriots would be on the lookout for a quarterback to groom as a potential replacement for Tom Brady, who will be 41 this season.
"Are there some quarterbacks left in the draft? Oh, there is. Look, there's a lot of good players at a lot of different positions," Caserio said. "We'll go back through and recalibrate here [Friday] morning. We'll kind of take an assessment of where we are and we'll get ready to go here for tomorrow afternoon or tomorrow evening, I guess, and then we'll talk about it tomorrow night and you can ask me the same question if we're in the same position."
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The Patriots have three picks in Friday's second and third rounds – 43 and 63 in the second and 95 in the third. They chose Georgia offensive lineman Isaiah Wynn at 23 and Georgia running back Sony Michel at 31 on Thursday.
Follow Matt Pepin on Twitter at @mattpep15.