Good article although we have been reading that BB should use his picks to move up for a while now. Does he finally give in?
The "Belichick never trades up" line is one that has been repeated so many times it is now accepted as fact.
For better or worse, he has traded up for Matt Light, Kenyatta Jones, Daniel Graham, Ty Warren, Eugene Wilson, Bethel Johnson, Asante Samuel, Chad Jackson and Ron Brace.
With the number of holes that needed to be filled I can't really find fault with trading down in exchange for extra picks the last couple of years.
With that many early picks my first expectation would be to trade one to the future - similar to turning a #89 pick a year ago to a #33 this year. Moving up that high in one year looks pretty good right now even though most were complaining last spring.
However, the combination of so many early draft picks and relatively fewer needs makes me think this could be a year we see the Pats move up rather than down.
Then again the Pats could take some combination of OLB, DE, G, C, T, RB and WR in the first four rounds - without significantly moving up once.