FOXBORO -- The Patriots passed on Lamar Jackson in the first round on two separate occasions. They opted not to take quarterbacks Mason Rudolph or Kyle Lauletta in the second round after wheeling and dealing to add a fourth-rounder and trading away one second for a future second.
They could very well take a pass on the entire draft class at the position despite the fact that Lauletta and a handful of other Patriots types are available at quarterback on Day 3.
Still, if they decide to throw a dart at a QB on the final day of the draft or in undrafted free agency, Princeton's Chad Kanoff would make a lot of sense. Like Lauletta and Western Kentucky's Mike White, Kanoff made our list of "Prototypical Patriots" before the draft.
Why? From a physical standpoint, he hits just about every measurement Bill Belichick has drafted in New England in the past. His height (6-4), weight (219), hand size (10 1/4 inches) and arm length (33 3/4 inches) are all in range of what the Patriots usually like. His 40 time isn't blazing, but it's fast enough (5.03 seconds), and his vertical is impressive (32.5 inches) for someone his size at his position.
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When it comes to Kanoff's production at Princeton, he barely missed a couple of the ideal marks on our radar. His touchdown-to-interception ratio was a hair below 2-to-1 (43-to-22), and his yards per attempt were a tick below 7.5 (7.4). His completion percentage was more than solid enough (64.5) relative to other Patriots draft picks at the position, and it's no wonder the Patriots have met with Kanoff more than once during the pre-draft process.
So why -- especially after putting together a record-breaking season at Princeton where he set the mark for passing yards in a single season (3,474) -- hasn't Kanoff found himself on the league-wide quarterback radar as this draft comes to its conclusion?
New England Patriots
Kanoff, who initially committed to Vanderbilt out of high school, was part of a unique offensive setup in 2016 run by Princeton's head coach Bob Surace. Kanoff split time with more of a dual-threat quarterback named John Lovett that season, giving way to Lovett whenever the Tigers got inside the red zone.
Lovett won the Bushnell Cup as the Ivy League offensive player of the year. Meanwhile, Kanoff's numbers didn't exactly jump off the page as "NFL-caliber." He completed 168 of his 272 attempts for 1,741 yards that season. He threw just six touchdowns and six interceptions.
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With that kind of stat line, scouts didn't pay Kanoff much attention. Then when Lovett was injured last season, Kanoff took over and won the Bushnell Cup as a pocket passer.
"They couldn't fathom that an Ivy League school has two NFL quarterbacks," said Surace, who spent nine seasons as an assistant with the Cincinnati Bengals. "So they didn't give him a draftable grade when they did their scouting in the winter before [Chad's] senior year. It's very difficult for scouts to say, 'Oops, I messed up. I need an eraser.' Not every team will erase.
"You notice who the good teams are year in and year out. They're willing to go back and see development and see maybe they might've missed something the spring before. Good teams do that. I think that really affected his ability to be at the Senior Bowl or the combine, the East-West game, or the NFLPA game. Because he's gone head-to-head with a lot of these other quarterbacks at these local pro days, and there's no question who the better one was. I have heard that from people who are at those workouts."
Kanoff, who is represented by Tom Brady and Jimmy Garoppolo's agent Don Yee, was scouted by the Patriots in person at Princeton's pro day, and Kanoff later met privately with the club.
It was "humbling," Kanoff explained, to have any pre-draft interest from a team he admired growing up. And his affinity for New England's style of play went well beyond just watching Tom Brady throw passes on TV. At Princeton, Kanoff studied Brady closely and he and his quarterback teammates once charted every one of Brady's throws for a season.
Princeton's former offensive coordinator James Perry, now the head coach at Bryant, loved the Patriots offense - and he had a coaching connection to help give his players more insight on some of the concepts used in Foxboro. Perry's brother, John, is an assistant for Bill O'Brien with the Houston Texans.
"We charted every throw [Brady] made and then we compared ourselves to how accurate he is short, medium, long," Kanoff said. "He literally never misses throws five yards away or behind the line of scrimmage. It's automatic basically every single time. That was something that I really worked at because of watching him. If it's there, and it's your job to throw it, you throw it and you make a completion. When it's not difficult whatsoever, he never misses. I remember that being the biggest takeaway . . .
"Coach would always say that the NFL is set up for everyone to go .500 so why do the Patriots always win? It's because this guy is so on point all the time. It makes a lot of sense that he's unusually good at the things you're supposed to do that not everyone is able to do perfectly."
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Kanoff is shooting to be as accurate as Brady in that short-to-intermediate range, though he knows it's a lofty standard. His coach believes there's another NFL comparison for Kanoff's game that makes some sense, even if he acknowledges it may sound a little overzealous at first blush.
"You look at [Chad's] body type, it was probably very similar to a Jared Goff coming out of Cal," Surace said. "He's long, he's lean . . . But his throwing motion, he has a beautiful throwing motion and his accuracy. You watch the two pro days. I've watched every throw Chad has made, obviously. I've watched a lot of Goff; I'm very intrigued by what they did while he was at Cal. I'm not saying Chad is the No. 1 pick in the draft or he's going to make the Pro Bowl in his second year, but there's a lot of physical similarities.
"I think in [a Rams] type of offense, or New England's type of offense, he's going to excel in that type of setting. He's not going to run the ball. He's not going to be Lamar Jackson. He's going to be the old-school standard. I'm not saying he's Peyton Manning, Jared Goff or Tom Brady. He's the kind of guy coordinators have been looking for years, and the most successful ones -- I'm not saying Chad is going to be one of those -- have won championships. He's in that mold of quarterback."
Princeton ran a no-huddle attack with Kanoff behind center, but it was a game-plan offense loaded with pro concepts. They were under center at times. They were in multiple formations. The motioned. They threw short. They threw deep.
They got their signals from the sidelines to try to keep their breakneck pace. And Kanoff wasn't making checks at the line to change plays. But it was far from simple.
"We're able to challenge our players from a standpoint of philosophy or scheme and personnel groups, formations, all those different things," Surace said. "And part of it is because our quarterback has one of those rare minds. He can remember plays from three years ago . . . You sit there and you're like, 'This guy gets it.' That's one of the things that the great ones that I've been around have been able to do."
"A lot of tempo offenses like to limit their formations formationally," Kanoff explained. "We do whatever. Tight end in. Flank. Wing. We do a ton of different pass plays. We do a ton of motioning. We do a ton with the protections, which I've learned now is not actually that common in college for a quarterback. It's somewhat similar to what a lot of NFL teams do, some of the teams I've been talking to. It's not usual. It was a lot for a quarterback, which is what you want. You want a lot on your shoulders."
Kanoff was a public policy and international relations major at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. He also had a minor in computer science and his senior thesis was a look at technological vulnerabilities of U.S. election systems. There would be a job in the non-football world waiting for him if he wanted it. But for now, he's all in on football, and he may hear his name called later today.
If that call happens to come from New England, to bring him in to study behind the QB he's studied so closely, that'd be just fine with him.
"The Patriots have to be the dream for just about every quarterback, I would imagine," he said. "They're the best. The best quarterback that we've all grown up watching. Great system. Great coach. Winners."