Baker Mayfield’s agent, Jack Mills, caused quite a stir when he revealed that the New England Patriots were interested in trading up to No. 2 to take his client in the NFL Draft had he not gone No. 1 overall. But while it may have been true that the Patriots had interest in trading up for Mayfield, they didn't directly tell the Giants.
Per Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald, Giants vice president of player evaluation Chris Mara went on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio channel on Friday and confirmed that while the Giants fielded calls from teams for the No. 2 pick, they didn’t get one from the Patriots.
“Yes, we got a couple calls,” said Mara. “The Patriots weren’t one of them.”
Shortly after Mills’ revelation, The Athletic’s Jeff Howe confirmed the Patriots’ interest in Mayfield. He also added another part to the story, which was that New England offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels told Mayfield’s camp that the team would consider trading up in the draft in order to secure a meeting with the quarterback after repeated rejections.
Given the tendencies of both teams’ GMs — Dave Gettleman doesn’t trade down in the first round and Bill Belichick doesn’t like trading up — not to mention the sizable price the Patriots would’ve had to pay, it was always unlikely that such a deal would’ve gone down.
As it turns out, none of it ended up mattering as Mayfield was taken by the Browns at No. 1. But even if he was still in play, the Patriots didn’t even bother calling up the Giants to give an offer and probably weren’t going to do so at the very last minute.