{"id":107947,"date":"2025-06-06T06:53:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T06:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/107947\/"},"modified":"2025-06-06T06:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T06:53:11","slug":"failed-patriots-draft-pick-flames-out-with-afc-playoff-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/107947\/","title":{"rendered":"Failed Patriots Draft Pick Flames Out With AFC Playoff Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2021 New England Patriots <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/teams\/nwe\/2021_draft.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">draft class<\/a> certainly doesn\u2019t look any better after the news regarding Joshuah Bledsoe.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/steelers\/status\/1930644967728336976\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Pittsburgh Steelers released<\/a> the former Patriots safety on Thursday after signing defensive back Quindell Johnson. Bledsoe signed a futures contract with the Steelers in January in an attempt to revive his NFL career \u2014 the 26-year-old had previously joined the UFL\u2019s San Antonio Brahmas.<\/p>\n<p>The Patriots drafted Bledsoe in the sixth round out of Missouri but he struggled with injuries and didn\u2019t play in a single game as rookie. Bledsoe only appeared in four games and made just one tackle over the next two seasons with the Patriots, who had cut Bledsoe prior to the 2023 season before bringing him back on the practice squad.<\/p>\n<p>Bledsoe was still with the Patriots <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2024\/07\/patriots-position-breakdown-safety-group-one-of-nfls-best\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">last summer<\/a> before they parted ways for good at the end of training camp.<\/p>\n<p>While not much was expected out of Bledsoe since he was a sixth-round pick, him falling out of the league again illustrates the problems the Patriots had in recent drafts, especially in 2021. Bledsoe, third-round pick Ronnie Perkins and seventh-round pick Tre Nixon \u2014 again, not much to be expected with Nixon \u2014 currently don\u2019t have a job in the NFL while Cameron McGrone (fifth-rounder) and William Sherman (sixth-rounder) are fringe roster players with the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos, respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>New England\u2019s first-round pick in 2021 was Mac Jones and after an extremely turbulent tenure with the Patriots, it looks like the signal-caller is destined for backup quarterback life the rest of his NFL career.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The Patriots only hit on two picks from the 2021draft in Christian Barmore (second-rounder) and Rhamondre Stevenson. Both are expected to play key roles for the Patriots this season, but <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2025\/05\/patriots-christian-barmore-gives-major-health-update-for-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Barmore\u2019s health is a big question<\/a> after he missed all but four games in 2024 due to blood clots.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2021 New England Patriots draft class certainly doesn\u2019t look any better after the news regarding Joshuah Bledsoe.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,27144,6,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-107947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-joshuah-bledsoe","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-nfl-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114635106111202715","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}