PATRIOT64

In the history of the New England Patriots there were 10 years in which the team had multiple selections in the first round not including this year as of yet which I am going to assume they keep these two at 24 and 28.

In what year when they had multiple first round picks was the best? and down the line to the worst?


1973 - The year they selected John Hannah,Sam Bam Cunningham and Darryl Stingley?
1976 - The Year they selected Mike Haynes,Pete Brock and Tim Fox?
1977 - The year they selected Raymond Clayborn and Stanley Morgan?
1980 - The year they selected Roland James and Vegas Ferguson?
1982 - The year they selected Ken Sims and Lester Williams?
1990 - The Year they selected Chris Singleton and Ray Agnew?
1991 - The Year they selected Pat Harlow and Leonard Russell?
1998 - The Year they selected Robert Edwards and Tebucky Jones?
1999 - The Year they selected Damian Woody and Andy Katzenmoyer?
2004 - The year they selected Vince Wilfork and Benjamin Watson?


I am going to pick as best ever the very first multiple year of draft picks of 1973 - You had Legendary and arguably the best offensive lineman in the history of the game in John Hannah,You had one of the best goal line backs in the history of the game in Sam Bam Cunningham (who also holds best rushing record in NE at 5,453 yds) and the late,great wonderful player and human being Darryl Stingley whose career probably would have been HOF material too if his career had not been cut short during an exhibition game in 1979,This was a masterful draft job done that year by Fairbanks which I truly don't know if we will ever see a trio like that picked in one round again
The only draft I ever saw better than this one WITH any NFL team in history in gathering talent with multiple picks in a round of the draft was Chicago getting Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers in round one at picks 3 and 4,both HOFers - That definately will NEVER be beaten IMO.

To get back to my selection, after #1 of 1973
I have to put the following multiple 1st round draft from 1976 as #2 - The legendary Mike Haynes and Tough as nails Tim Fox were two awesome picks back then,Fox used to intimidate and hit guys like Rodney does in modern times and NEVER missed a game in his career here and Pete Brock was a pretty damn good Center too,It was a very nice selection once again,The fact that the Patriots did not win a super bowl with these types of guys on this team in the 70s still brings frustration and bewilderment to me,I guess Pittsburgh was so damn good back then it was tough to dethrone them.

I go with 1977 at #3 with Stanley Morgan the best WR by far that I have ever seen wearing a Patriots uniform and Clayborn was one of our best with 36 INTS and 3 pro bowl appearances in his career,Unbelievable talent picked in 4 years by this team which probably will never be duplicated again in our lifetime.

Ranked at #4 I am going with our latest multiple draft from 2004 with Benjamin Watson who has alot of upside as soon as he shows a little more intensity and better hands more consistently,We all know he has the talent to be very good - Vince Wilfork is one of the finest NT we have had on this team in some time,In recent memory only Ted Washington played the nose better,You have to back aways to find another one as good as Wilfork is playing at this level right now.

at #5 is a tough one but I go with the draft of 1998 as Robert Edwards was heading into best start of a Patriots RB in history when that devastating Pro Bowl knee injury ended his career here and which I am happy to hear he is playing well in Canada now. - Tebucky was a good factor in one of our super bowl wins and has had a decent career.

To cut this thread short which is starting to get too long,to summarize my picks are from Best Multiple First Round drafted players to Worst in terms of years picked are

#1 - 1973
#2 - 1976
#3 - 1977
#4 - 2004
#5 - 1998
Summary of years not mentioned above but ranked in lower tier as multiple #1 round draft years as follows....
#6 - 1980 - James has 29 INTS in his career here/Vegas sucked which knocked this multiple 1st rd. draft year to #6 rank
#7 - 1999 - Woody was a very good player, Katzenmoyer,Who knows how good he would have been if his career was longer than 23 games?
#8 - 1982 - Sims was a pass rushing failure only getting 16 sacks in 8 seasons here,not what we were expecting for a #1
#9 - 1991 - Always enjoyed Russell but Harlow was not very good although he was around for 5 years.
#10 - 1990 - Singleton and Agnew did not do much to improve our horrific team in the early 90s - which proves that bad draft years in a row like 90 and 91 were led to a very poor team till Parcells and Kraft took over the team and started drafting decent again.

patsfan13

I agreewith the great Hannah, Cunningham & Stingly being the best ever for the Pats. Another thing on Cunningham the guy was as good a blocker out of the backfield as I have ever seen. Think Graham blocking out of the background. Better blocker than Gash who a lot of you remember as a blocking back.

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"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."