If you are a New England Patriots fan and you want the team to sign Kirk Cousins for the starting quarterback role this offseason, you’ll probably end up disappointed.

Chad Graff of The Athletic provided a rather sobering update on a potential Cousins pursuit this week, saying that the Patriots would prefer to draft their quarterback.

“But after their first set of front-office meetings and interviews at the scouting combine, the Patriots are leaning toward using the No. 3 pick on their quarterback of the future,” Graff wrote. “So don’t expect the Patriots to be in the Kirk Cousins sweepstakes as they focus instead on doing their homework on Drake Maye and Jayden Daniels.”

New England owns the No. 3 overall pick in the NFL Draft this spring, and either North Carolina’s Drake Maye or LSU’s Jayden Daniels are likely to be on the board at that selection.

USC’s Caleb Williams is expected to go to the Chicago Bears at No. 1.

Cousins will be the top signal-caller available on the free-agent market later this month, and while the Minnesota Vikings were long considered to be the easy favorites to retain him, things have changed.

The Vikings want to keep Cousins, but not at the expense of their long-term financial flexibility. There seems to be a gap between what Cousins feels he is worth and what Minnesota wants to pay him, so he may very well end up playing elsewhere in 2024.

We just couldn’t be counting on the Pats being that team.

To be blunt, the Patriots never made that much sense for Cousins.

Cousins will be 36 years old at the start of next season and would surely prefer to join a team that has a chance of winning. New England does not offer that opportunity.

There seems to be a higher likelihood of either Kirk Cousins returning to the Vikings or signing with a club like the Pittsburgh Steelers rather than linking up with the Pats, who went 4-13 this past year.

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