FOXBOROUGH — The Patriots knew they were going to take a quarterback. The only questions were when and, most importantly, whom.

Ten passers went off the board, six of them after New England made its first pick, before the Patriots chose quarterback Danny Etling from LSU in the seventh round. Etling, the No. 219 overall pick, joins a quarterbacks room that includes a 40-year-old legend who lately has been thinking about how much longer he wants to play.

“I knew it might be a long day so I just was enjoying the process, enjoying everything, taking it all in,’’ Etling said on a conference call Saturday night. “When I got the call and saw my name on the screen it was very exciting. I just couldn’t believe it.’’

Etling, 6 feet 3 inches and 222 pounds, threw for 2,463 yards, 16 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions last season. With a 60 percent completion rate, he led the Tigers to a 9-4 record, 6-2 in the SEC.

He’d popped onto the Patriots’ radar the spring before, when the scouting staff was starting to compile notes on other LSU prospects. The Tigers had one of the top receivers in the draft, D.J. Chark, so when they scouted him, they noticed Etling, too.

“The thing about him, he played for [former Tigers offensive coordinator Cam] Cameron in kind of a pro-style offense, had some experience, and the one thing that he didn’t do, this guy didn’t turn the ball over,’’ said Patriots director of player personnel Nick Caserio.

“Takes care of the ball, smart, pretty accurate thrower. There’s some good qualities and traits that we think we can work with and develop.’’

The Terre Haute, Ind., native was a four-star recruit coming out of high school. He was originally recruited to Purdue, where he played as a true freshman and started the final seven games of the season.

As a sophomore, however, Etling lost the starting job after a 2-3 start and decided to transfer to LSU.

After spending a year on the scout team, Etling won the Tigers’ starting job as a junior, where the team posted a 7-3 record and a win in the Citrus Bowl, and he followed that up by starting every game as a senior.

“I went there and competed hard and was able to earn the starting job and held on to it for two years and really improved a ton as I just continued to play and keep getting better,’’ Etling said. “I just saw an opportunity to grow and get great coaching and I jumped at the chance.’’

All in all, Etling played in four coordinators’ offenses in college, something he said helped him learn football and to be adaptable.

“This game is about being adaptable, being versatile,’’ Caserio said. “One week a game plan might be this, the next week a game plan might be something different. So how quickly can you handle that? Can you process that? Can you understand that? Can you apply it and take that information? There were some examples, some evidence of him doing that and that’s something that Danny worked on, to his credit.’’

In 2016, the first season Etling got on the field for the Tigers, he played through a lower-back injury that gave him shooting pains down his left leg. He had surgery last April.

Since then, Etling has focused on improving his mechanics. He developed some bad habits to compensate for the injury. Caserio said he and the Patriots’ scouts saw a difference from 2016 to 2017, and even from the 2017 season to Etling’s pro day, where Caserio estimated he threw 150 passes.

As it happens, Etling has been making those changes at 3DQB, the training center in California run by Tom Brady’s throwing coach, Tom House.

“They’ve been teaching me a lot of things, fixing a lot of mechanics that you don’t necessarily have time to do while you’re in college because you don’t have time because you have classes and things like that,’’ Etling said. “It was really cool to focus on just creating better fundamentals, creating better mechanics, and helping me really focus down on those things going into the draft and going into this process.’’

Etling will compete for a roster spot, as the Patriots have backup Brian Hoyer under contract. If Brady remains away from Gillette Stadium for much offseason work, Etling should get extra reps as a result.

The Patriots believe they can continue to help Etling improve his mechanics. Brady, after all, is still honing his after decades playing quarterback. It’s the intelligence and the adaptability that made Etling the choice after New England passed on so many other options.

Nora Princiotti can be reached at nora.princiotti@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @NoraPrinciotti.