Report: Patriots Did Not Pursue QB Andy Dalton

Last week after his release from the Cincinnati Bengals, the New England Patriots were reportedly interested in quarterback Andy Dalton, though the level of interest they had in the veteran QB was unknown.

Now we know their level of interest wasn't that strong.

There were reportedly five teams that pursued Dalton after his release, and none of them were New England, per Pro Football Talk.

Per a source with knowledge of the situation, five teams pursued Dalton. None provided a direct path to a starting job in 2020. (This implies that the Patriots weren’t one of the five.) Dalton decided to go to the best team with the best chance to compete for a championship in 2020.

Dalton is undoubtedly talented. Despite playing for an organization like Cincinnati for the better part of a decade, he was able to throw for 204 touchdowns compared to 118 interceptions, 31,594 yards, and has shown time after time that he can be a good NFL quarterback when put in the proper situation. Unfortunately, the proper situation didn't come too often in Cincinnati, and now a regime change at head coach in 2019 has the Bengals moving on from Dalton this offseason.

For the Patriots, they seemingly have their eyes pegged on 2019 fourth-round pick Jarrett Stidham being their starting quarterback next season. But the only way they can understand what they have in the young QB is by fully investing in him, which involves surrounding him with talent, not competition.

While bringing in another talented veteran like Dalton would make sense for the Patriots if they wanted to spark a quarterback competition this summer in New England, there's been nothing done up until this point of the offseason that suggests that's what they would like to do. The Patriots are all-in on Jarrett Stidham, which is why signing Andy Dalton wouldn't make sense.

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