We simply don't have enough roster spots for multiple rookies.
Josh Boyce (4th rd pick) couldn't make the team this year.
Aaron Dobson (2nd rd pick) was a healthy scratch for 8 weeks this season. He was quickly IR'd even though his hamstring was not torn.
Alfonso Dennard mysteriously fell off the depth chart and then got IR'd.
James White (4th rd pick) couldn't get on the game-day roster despite high praise this past off season.
Is it really worth drafting numerous guys in the 4th to 7th rds when they might not make the team? Seems like a waste of draft picks. It would be better to trade those to move up and get 2-3 impact players rather than drafting a bunch of players and then cutting them.
Obviously we are not privvy to the coaching staff's opinions regarding the current roster, but from the outside looking in this looks spot on. To add to the above:
In 2013 the Patriots considered themselves so talent-poor on the backend of the roster that they made 7 waiver claims on rookies during final cutdowns.
In 2014, the Patriots outright cut 3 of 4 of their 6th-7th round draft picks (Jon Halapio, Jemea Thomas, Jeremy Gallon), the sole survivor being Zach Moore, who was mostly a gameday inactive.
In addition to Josh Boyce, Joe Vellano, a 2013 year-long active player, was on the practice squad for most of 2014.
Currently the middle-class and the back-end of this roster is stacked. There are perhaps three positions (OG,LB,WR) where you could project a clear opening for a young backup-quality player. When you have the luxury of targeting improving positions over general roster quality that is the kernel of the argument for trading around to get the players you like at the positions that need to be filled for good value.
You can always trade out and collect picks in next years draft.
This is the other aspect of the current situation. Unless there is a huge roster shakeup (McCourty, Revis depart, Amendola is outright cut, etc.) the Pats late-round picks will be playing for the Cowboys and Titans by October. There's really no place to put them on the roster.
But almost certainly the Pats are going to have depth-issues at one or more positions during the 2015 due to injury. It's hard to structure your roster in August to ensure you'll have a deep roster in December, accounting for every possible injury scenario.
The past two years, the Pats have used their late-round picks to go out at the last moment and get out-of-favor players (Sopoaga, Ayers, Casillias) at positions where depth is needed. This year the players the Pats grabbed in that fashion were big parts of the reason this team won the Super Bowl. The first-round bye and home-field advantage they helped attain were benefits to this team and detriments to the teams we played (Colts especially) and even to teams we didn't. (Broncos not wanting to go to Foxborough)
So our 2014 late picks will likely have little value to us in 2014. Trading out for 2015 picks, however, will give the Pats tremendous flexability to go out and get that 4th-year or veteran spot starter at a need spot in October.
I see this logic, but I think a quantity draft with some transfer of resources to future years is plausible as well.
The Pats top of the roster was very good this year, but as I see it, the depth in a few areas was either shaky or projects to be questionable going forward.
Agree with your position-by-position analysis, but I see more of an argument for improvements to the top of the roster, not the back-end.
Neither Chandler Jones nor Ninkovich are coming off the field unless the Pats get someone better. Ayers was clearly rotation-quality this year and he disappeared when Jones was healthy again.
If you want to improve a position that could clearly be upgraded (OG) then signing a bunch of late-round rookies to back up Wendell isn't the way to go. You want a starting guard that makes Wendell a swing-backup on the interior.
OG, DL, WR/TE and RB seem to be clear spots where the Pats could get better starting talent (and WR/TE is a total crapshoot in this system). You grab starting talent there and the backups are set too. The Pats had a "depth problem" at DB when Talib was injured the last two playoff campaigns, but sign Revis and Browner for the top of the roster and suddenly flotsam like Chung are competent starting players and the Pats have the best depth in the league at the CB position. Some of that is the fortuitous nature of having an UDFA CB like Butler fight his way onto the roster at the expense of LB depth but the Pats have a track-record of that and again that is fine IF you have the ability to bolster depth at the trade-deadline by trading late picks. The first weeks of the season the Pats are shaking out their roster anyway.
So anyway, without understanding just how this draft projects or how FA will shake out, the Pats should be looking to move up to get starting-caliber players at the positions they want to fill, then trading their remaining picks out in order to acquire depth later. They don't need to rebuild the entire roster or any one side of the ball.
