New England Patriots

Morning sports update: Peter King explained why he thinks the Patriots will trade up for Tua Tagovailoa

"I just thought, it seems to me, anyway, the kind of gamble that Bill Belichick very well might take."

Tua Tagovailoa playing for Alabama in 2019. The Associated Press

By Hayden Bird

3 minutes to read

On Monday, the originally planned date for the 2020 Boston Marathon saw only a few runners out and about. One runner, a healthcare worker, ran her marathon in the shape of a timely message (though it was endearingly misspelled).

Peter King on his Patriots prediction: NFL insider Peter King released his mock draft on Monday ahead of the actual draft later this week.

King’s draft carried several surprises, with the Patriots causing arguably the biggest shock. Predicting that Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa would drop, King thinks the Patriots will move up to draft him.

The reason I gave him to the Patriots is that if he falls, and he continues to fall, if he gets to 12, 13, 14, look at Bill Belichick’s relationship with Nick Saban,” King said on Monday. “Nick Saban loves Tua Tagovailoa. He loves his competitiveness, he loves his drive, his ability to come back from injury. He loves everything about him. And in my opinion, that’s exactly what he would tell Bill Belichick.”

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“And if you watch the tape of Tua when he’s healthy, he’s a great football player,” King continued. “So, then you decide, is maybe trading next year’s [first-round pick] worth it — this year’s [first-round pick] and next year’s [first-round pick] to get a guy who could be a great player for the next 10 or 12 years in the NFL?

King added that linking Belichick and Tagovailoa is merely theoretical, but makes sense.

“Now, you’re taking a risk,” King explained. “You are. But I just thought, it seems to me, anyway, the kind of gamble that Bill Belichick very well might take. I have no inside information. All it is is just a projection, that if I were Bill Belichick and I saw Tua falling, I would say, ‘I want this guy.'”

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Trivia: What quarterback was drafted in the first round of the 2000 draft, 181 picks before Tom Brady?

(Answer at the bottom),

Hint: He threw touchdown passes in college to Randy Moss, among others.

More from Boston.com:

Tom Brady was the lone resident who was working out in a closed Tampa park

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Make no mistake, Pedro Martinez was terrifying to American League batters 20 years ago:

On this day: In 2002, the Patriots — fresh off of the team’s first Super Bowl win — traded Drew Bledsoe during the NFL Draft. Bledsoe went to the Bills in exchange for a 2003 first-round pick.

In 2017, Bledsoe was asked if he knew he was going to Buffalo before the deal was finalized:

No, there were other teams that were involved at the time. The Chicago Bears I think were trying to do something. The Houston Texans were still fairly young, fairly new. I think they were trying to do something. I think the Cincinnati Bengals were also involved. I didn’t know I was going to go to Buffalo, I think the day that I found out, I was actually at the hospital with my kid who was sick. I got a call from my agent saying, ‘Hey, you’re going to Buffalo.’ And I think the perception from the outside of what Buffalo is vs. what is when you’re actually there are quite different. We really enjoyed it. We had a good time in Buffalo.

Classic rewind

: A pre-pitch routine that became iconic in New England.

Trivia answer: Chad Pennington

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