Notre Dame Draft Watch: Alize Mack makes sense for Patriots

The Patriots will be looking for Rob Gronkowski’s successor. Alize Mack could be the guy.

Looking back at when Alize Mack arrived on campus for Notre Dame, he was the highest touted Tight End in the 2015 class. Alizé was supposed to carry on the “tight end U” tradition.

Fast forward throughout his career, and it was definitely an up and down one. After playing in all 13 games as a freshman, Alizé “Jones” at the time, was suspended for his sophomore season because of academic issues. His Junior season was another hurdle, as he just didn’t live up to the potential he was putting out and showing throughout spring and summer.

His play never translated much onto the field on Saturday’s.

This past season was another just “okay” one for him in my eyes. He is such a freak athlete and special talent that you would expect him to pop through at some point, but he never fully did at Notre Dame. The 6-5, 247-pound tight end had 68 receptions for 716 yards and 4 touchdown catches throughout his Irish career.

Now the NFL is around the corner and he has a chance to finally clear that hurdle and pop through at the professional level. I’ve always been extremely high on Mack and I honestly believe he will do just that in the NFL if he stays focused, healthy and gets put into the best situation and fit.

Where would he fit best in the NFL?

There’s one place I can see Alizé absolutely thriving and that’s in New England with Bill Belichick and the Patriots.

With Gronkowski pondering retirement last season, it seems like he’s coming to the end of his career and they need to continue added big time talent to their tight end room. While I think the Patriots have a real shot at drafting a tight end in the first round, I still think they find a way to snag Mack in the later rounds.

They have three tight ends on their roster right now with Stephen Anderson, Dwayne Allen, and Gronkowski. Like I mentioned, Gronkowski won’t be there much longer and Allen is nearing 30. And yes, they have some guys on the injury list, but I think Mack could beat them out once he shows up to camp based on just his athletism alone.

Belichick has loved running the two tight end set in New England and it’s something that has been very difficult to stop. He’s even thrown in a four-tight set over the years when he’s had the right personnel to do so.

Adding Alizé Mack to New England’s offense would give Mack a chance to thrive in the league and give Tom Brady another weapon.

I’ll give the Patriots a little advice — even though they don’t need it: do not pass on this athletic freak.