I am genuinely baffled by this line of thought. If I follow you all correctly, it goes like this:
- Given the current economics (and talent) of the team, and given past statements by Kraft/BB about high draft picks, a top-3 pick may be disadvantageous to the Patriots. In that case a trade down would be desired.
- Certain past teams were able to finagle a huge bounty for trading their top-3 picks.
- BB may not be able to extract such a price in this draft. He'll get plenty of offers to trade down, but not nearly as lucrative as the offers some other teams have gotten in some other years.
ERGO
- He'll choose to shoot himself in the foot, taking on a damaging contract rather than risking looking bad to the media and public.
Yeah, that sounds like Bill Belichick to me.
If you think that's misrepresenting your position, then what else IS this mythical "50 cents on the dollar" except other people's perceptions? A deal is good if it leaves your team better off and if no better offer is available. Whatever some other team once got is immaterial to the ultimate decision, unless you're worried about
looking good.
Last year's draft alone shows that hypothetical draft-chart values do NOT drive the Patriots' trade decisions. The rule of thumb is that trading a pick to the future should earn you a 1-round bump up. But the Patriots traded a 2007 3rd straight up for a 2008 3rd. Terrible deal! And a 2007 1st for 2007 4th + 2008 1st. Lousy!!! They just didn't like the 2007 draft class, so they punted...value chart be damned.
Chances are that a couple of SF wins will eliminate this "problem" anyway, but I'm confident that the Pats won't be limited in their decisions by somebody else's perception of value.