The last couple of years, the New England Patriots’ pick has come in the early portion of the NFL Draft – typically within the first hour. They selected third overall in 2024, then fourth overall in 2025. After a 14-3 season and trip to Super Bowl LX they’re going back to the back end of the first round, but the wait may not be quite as long as Patriots fans remember from the glory days.
Prior to this year, teams had 10 minutes to make their first-round selection. This year the league is shortening that window to eight minutes.
In the past teams would almost always use the full 10 minutes on the clock, resulting in the first round ending around midnight. There’s no reason to think they won’t keep using the full clock with the shorter time limit. Still, that’s two minutes per pick. Over the course of 30 picks, that could shave a full hour off of the festivities.
With the Patriots sitting at the 31st overall pick, that means an earlier night for fans compared to what would be the case in past years. In his weekly notes column on Sunday, ESPN’s Mike Reiss estimated that would put the Patriots on the clock around 10:22 p.m. ET on Thursday night.
Of course, that’s assuming the Patriots make the pick at No. 31. A trade would change things, with a trade down likely pushing the wait back a whole 24 hours to Day 2. That’s a possibility we explored in our latest Patriots Mock Draft, which you can check out here.