New England Patriots Select Cornerback In NFL Draft

The New England Patriots selected former Ole Miss cornerback Ken Webster with the No. 252 overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.

This was the last selection for New England and Webster is a nice addition to the cornerback unit. Webster, 5-foot-11, 203 pounds, spent four years at Ole Miss. He totaled 30 tackles and two interceptions and five passes defended. During his collegiate year, Webster had three interceptions, 20 pass defended and 122 tackles.

At the NFL Combine, the cornerback ran a 4.43 40-yard dash, put up 18 reps on the bench press and record a 43 inch vertical and a 133 inch broad jump. He ran a 6.85 3 Cone Drill and a 4.14 20-yard shuttle.

The Patriots drafted Joejuan William for the same position which gives them an excellent depth.

Director of player personnel Nick Caseiro pointed out that the team first looks for great football players, and then determines their position.

“Part-time outside cornerback who has failed to live up to expectations after a fast start at Ole Miss. Webster is compact and strong and shows some talent as a run defender, but he lacks juice as man cover corner and is too inconsistent from press. His best opportunity might be to re-brand as a run-support nickel cornerback or dime linebacker on the next level.”

“It’s the same as we do every year,” he said. “We look at what’s up there, we look at our options and we pick the players that we think are going to fit our team the best. We’re not necessarily worried about what position they play. If you build up enough good football players over the course of time, then hopefully you put yourself in a good position. As we all know, there are other opportunities to add players to our team. Once the draft is over, then we enter the next phase of the team-building process. It’s kind of an on-going thing. We’re kind of at a fixed point in time right now in this three-day period, but we have a long runway in front of us so let’s say we’ll just continue to the next phase. In the interim, we just take it step-by-step, day-by-day and just try to pick players that we think fit us the best regardless of how we get them here.”