Needs, needs. First time following a Pats draft? Need is not what they draft based on. This should not be a surprise.
then i would argue that clauson or colt are 2 best players in the board.
how can you pick this guy a spl team guy over clauson or colt who both are better.
The pats don't draft so much based on area of need, or best player available, but they pick who has the most VALUE (not the same as talent/need/etc., it's kind of a combination of the two) in that particular draft slot.
OLB is a higher need, Clausen probably grades out higher in terms of best available, although I doubt he's a great cornerback.
The reason McCourty was the pick, in my mind, is because there was a consensus that there were 5 quality corners in this draft: Haden, Jackson, McCourty, Wilson, and Robinson. After that, the level of talent dropped down a significant amount.
CB may not have been our biggest need, but it is a need - wilhite and particularly wheatley have not developed quite as BB hoped, and Sean Springs was running on fumes last year. Given the fact that Wilson and Robinson were picked pretty quickly after we grabbed McCourty, it is obvious that if we wanted a top-level talent at CB, we needed to get him when we did. As to why McCourty over Wilson, my guess is Wilson might have slightly more potential at one aspect of the game (coverage) while McCourty is more versatile - we all know which of those traits BB values more.
In my mind, the reason OLB and DE and WR weren't addressed is simply because the depth of available talent at those positions right now. Odrick and Jerry Hughes are great players, and no one's saying that they wouldn't fit an area of need. But is Odrick THAT much better than Linval Joseph or Lamar Houston? Is Jerry Hughes an overwhelmingly better fit for the pats than Ricky Sapp, Corey Wootton, or Sergio Kindle?
Is it a clear-cut fact that Dez Bryant or Demaryius Thomas would be a better fit for the pats than Golden Tate, Damian Williams or Arrellious Benn? I really don't think so.
All those guys are still out there, and we have 3 picks coming up, not to mention a 3rd and a 4th if we really want to trade back into the 2nd a 4th time.
If by the end of the fourth round we still haven't addressed OLB, DE, WR, or TE at all, then I will definitely agree with people who say this hasn't been a great draft - but in looking at the choices out there, and knowing that we'll probably have multiple chances to get a lot of the guys named above, I think this has the potential to be a pretty awesome draft