My mock using a simulator

[KDPPatsfan85]

 

[jmt57]

View attachment 57507

Nice haul - six of the first 82 picks - wow!
The late round picks are excellent too.

 

[jmt57]

I'm back to sticking with a QB at #3, then trading back up into the first for another pick.
Not easy without the benefit of extra picks from trading down from #3.

In this first one I paused the mock after five OTs were selected.
I must have offered Pittsburgh a dozen trades before they finally accepted.
Frankly the Pats gave up too much, but I wanted to see how it played out.
Fortunately some other decent players were still there when it was the Pats turn again.

3. QB Maye/Daniels
- Pats trade #34, #103, #180, 2025 2nd and 2025 4th for Steelers #20
20 OT Troy Fautanu, Washington
68 WR Ricky Pearsall, Florida
137 RB Dylan Laube, UNH
193 FS Mark Perry, TCU
231 TE McCallan Castles, Tennessee
(other option at 231 was WR Ryan Fluornoy, SE Missouri St)
[No 2025 2nd or 4th round picks]

Even though it was only six picks, they were good quality.
The big downside was losing two 2025 draft picks.

=============================================

Same paramaters as above: QB at 3, trade up into 1st for another pick.
Five offensive players, then best available defense.
Once again, the cost of moving back up into the first round is far too exorbitant to be a good value.

3. QB Maye/Daniels
- Pats trade #34 and 2025 1st to Bengals for #18
18 OT JC Latham, Alabama
68 WR Ricky Pearsall, Florida
- [Had the Pats gone WR then OT, the picks would have been WR Brian Thomas Jr and OT Roger Rosengarten]
103 TE Cade Stover, Ohio State
137 RB Jaylen Wright, Tennessee
180 CB Jarvis Brownlee, Louisville
193 ED Mohamed Kamara, Colorado State
231 LB Edefuan Olofoshio, Washington
[No 2025 1st round pick]


The price to move back up into the first round is probably too prohibitive for it to come to fruition.

 

[Blackluck]

The Bo Nix scenario. Assume the trade with MIN is 11, 23, 2025 1, 2026 (let's say 2.) Chances for this happening are near zero but wanted to see how it might play out.

11. Bo Nix. The crowd goes wild (not.) In my amateur opinion, Nix= Dalton/Alex Smith, which really isn't a bad outcome. If the team strategy is to build through the draft, you're gonna need more draft picks and this trade allows that.
23. Mims. Georgia tackles play both LT and RT, lessening the growing pains college LTs have in their transition to the NFL.
34. Oh man. The board did not break our way if we want a top flight WR. Here's the choices.

Worthy
McMonkey
Franklin
Legette
Polk
R.Wilson

OR

Byron Murphy II (DT)
Cooper DeJean (S)

Murphy and DeJean both have 1st round grades. Murphy is probably the 2nd ranked DT in the entire draft. In reality if NE is in the position teams would be beating down the door to trade up. That's what I wanted to do but could not execute a trade with ATL or IND (43, 45) to get an extra pick. While WR is a glaring need, we can't overlook the value presented here. We go with DeJean as he can play either FS or CB. (Personally I would take Worthy here, but I don't think he fits what Wolf looks for in a WR.)

68. The WRs are picked over. McMillan is last man standing.
103. Gah. We take B. Fisher. NE ranked near the bottom of the NFL in pass pro last year. V.Low and A.Mafi are huge liabilities coming off the bench. Even Andrews is slipping. OL ain't sexy, but it's necessary. (This explains why I wanted the extra pick, either to trade up or get an OT and a skill position player.)
137. TE or RB. If we don't take RB here, probably none worth taking after this round. Laube gives AVP mismatch opportunities
180. Most of the TEs are gone. We get Reiman who has some promise.
193, 231. BPA. No offensive players ranked near our picks.



Edit: In this scenario, NE could go WR at 23 instead. But positional value pretty much dictates LT over WR in round 1 unless taking one of the top 3 WRs (who are very, very good.) Having an extra 1st round pick here however really illustrates just how powerful that extra pick can be: It allows flexibility in player selection for the rest of the draft. If the board fell this way and NE has yet to take either a LT or WR they really cannot afford to go defense at 34 (IMO, anyway.) That delays upgrading the offense for yet another season, although how things worked out in this particular sim we still have a lot of work left to do. But next year with two 1s we can almost certainly get a WR1. The trade off a potential franchise QB but with a high chance of failure vs. building up the roster with a Tier 2 QB at the helm. I don't agree that one is objectively better than the other and can see both sides of the argument

 

[Blackluck]

The price to move back up into the first round is probably too prohibitive for it to come to fruition.

Yeah. I don't know if that's due to the logic of this particular sim or if the 5th year rookie contract is considered that valuable. I think NE can really only afford a trade up to 28-32, if that. I think they might do better to trade back a bit at 34 and pick up an extra pick. (They'll need to be really lucky to hit on all three of their first 3 picks.)

 

[KDPPatsfan85]

 

[State]

View attachment 57519

You had me going until 137. It’s a pipe dream that these very good players, like Max Melton and Blake Fisher, will be available so late.

But then again look at last year. Dawand Jones. The RT BB obviously should have taken in the third round instead of Marty MaPoop, who continues to be a square peg trying to find a home in a round hole.

Positional (desperate) need met excellent value.

 

[KDPPatsfan85]

You had me going until 137. It’s a pipe dream that these very good players, like Max Melton and Blake Fisher, will be available so late.

But then again look at last year. Dawand Jones. The RT BB obviously should have taken in the third round instead of Marty MaPoop, who continues to be a square peg trying to find a home in a round hole.

Positional (desperate) need met excellent value.

I just took what was available in the mock. All of these mock simulators have players ranked very differently

 

[KDPPatsfan85]

Which draft would you prefer?

A.


B.

 

[Blackluck]

I'd be OK with JJ or Maye. To that end B (although I would try for a different RB and wouldn't draft Milton).

Edit: One problem with B though is MIN jumping to 5.

 

[jmt57]

Which draft would you prefer?

A.
View attachment 57523

B.
View attachment 57524

If the Patriots choose to trade down, those are a couple of very nice draft hauls.
Some quality to that quantity.

 

[State]

A, definitely. I have a big preference for Maye over McCarthy. And I am eager to draft Xavier Legette.

 

[captain stone]

View attachment 57507

What did you receive in the trade-down from 3 to 8?

 

[captain stone]

I'm back to sticking with a QB at #3, then trading back up into the first for another pick.
Not easy without the benefit of extra picks from trading down from #3.

In this first one I paused the mock after five OTs were selected.
I must have offered Pittsburgh a dozen trades before they finally accepted.
Frankly the Pats gave up too much, but I wanted to see how it played out.
Fortunately some other decent players were still there when it was the Pats turn again.

3. QB Maye/Daniels
- Pats trade #34, #103, #180, 2025 2nd and 2025 4th for Steelers #20
20 OT Troy Fautanu, Washington
68 WR Ricky Pearsall, Florida
137 RB Dylan Laube, UNH
193 FS Mark Perry, TCU
231 TE McCallan Castles, Tennessee
(other option at 231 was WR Ryan Fluornoy, SE Missouri St)
[No 2025 2nd or 4th round picks]

Even though it was only six picks, they were good quality.
The big downside was losing two 2025 draft picks.

=============================================

Same paramaters as above: QB at 3, trade up into 1st for another pick.
Five offensive players, then best available defense.
Once again, the cost of moving back up into the first round is far too exorbitant to be a good value.

3. QB Maye/Daniels
- Pats trade #34 and 2025 1st to Bengals for #18
18 OT JC Latham, Alabama
68 WR Ricky Pearsall, Florida
- [Had the Pats gone WR then OT, the picks would have been WR Brian Thomas Jr and OT Roger Rosengarten]
103 TE Cade Stover, Ohio State
137 RB Jaylen Wright, Tennessee
180 CB Jarvis Brownlee, Louisville
193 ED Mohamed Kamara, Colorado State
231 LB Edefuan Olofoshio, Washington
[No 2025 1st round pick]


The price to move back up into the first round is probably too prohibitive for it to come to fruition.

In your second mock, was Fautanu (or Tyler Guyton) not available at #18?

 

[captain stone]

View attachment 57519

I would love to see this one happen; but I’m afraid that ALL of Melton, Stover & Fisher are each going about 100 picks earlier than where this particular mock has them going.


Edit: Posted this before seeing State’s reply; sorry didn’t mean to pile-on.

 

[Blackluck]

If WAS: Daniels then Maye else JJ. WAS takes Maye, so I make a calculated gamble to trade with TEN for an extra second (in reality TEN would need to give up more here, likely a 2025 2nd round pick.) One thing to keep in mind: Teams trading out of the top 10 are giving up blue chip players. The most likely teams to trade down IMO are LAC, Atlanta and the NY Jets. Also IMO the NYG only trade up for Maye (they have as many offensive holes as we do except for their $40 million QB) and won't pass on one of the big three WRs for JJ. Would real-life NEP do this? Probably not.

Pick 68: Some top flight DTs available here. This is a bit of reach but both OTs give positional flexibility with one of them emerging as the franchise LT next year. Overall an ode to BB in doubling up on different positions but also reverse BB and taking DEF in later rounds instead of vice versa. Here's a link from a reddit big board that also links to Dane's "the Beast." That'll explain the Eichenberg, Taylor and Jackson picks. Smith is a rnd 5 value.





Here are the trades. I didn't calculate the value of these trades, I suspect some fleecing going on here at the hands of the AI .


Edit: In case it's not clear, not a Daniels fan, I think he's a really poor fit for NE.

 

[jmt57]

In your second mock, was Fautanu (or Tyler Guyton) not available at #18?

Yes, in that mock they were both gone by #18.
That was unusual.

 

[jmt57]

If WAS: Daniels then Maye else JJ. WAS takes Maye, so I make a calculated gamble to trade with TEN for an extra second (in reality TEN would need to give up more here, likely a 2025 2nd round pick.) One thing to keep in mind: Teams trading out of the top 10 are giving up blue chip players. The most likely teams to trade down IMO are LAC, Atlanta and the NY Jets. Also IMO the NYG only trade up for Maye (they have as many offensive holes as we do except for their $40 million QB) and won't pass on one of the big three WRs for JJ. Would real-life NEP do this? Probably not.

Pick 68: Some top flight DTs available here. This is a bit of reach but both OTs give positional flexibility with one of them emerging as the franchise LT next year. Overall an ode to BB in doubling up on different positions but also reverse BB and taking DEF in later rounds instead of vice versa. Here's a link from a reddit big board that also links to Dane's "the Beast." That'll explain the Eichenberg, Taylor and Jackson picks. Smith is a rnd 5 value.

View attachment 57542



Here are the trades. I didn't calculate the value of these trades, I suspect some fleecing going on here at the hands of the AI .
View attachment 57543

Edit: In case it's not clear, not a Daniels fan, I think he's a really poor fit for NE.

Turning one pick (#103) into four (#131, #138, #168 and #190) was very much well worth it - especially when you see the talent acquired with those picks. For a team in need of multiple upgrades and depth like the Pats, those trades worked out great.

Essentially the Patriots traded S Cole Bishop for:
- RB Ray Davis
- TE Jared Wiley
- RB Isaac Guerendo
- S Trey Taylor

That's a great trade-off.

 

[sturmrider]

Here's a mock I did, where I had my choice between Daniels and McCarthy. I am not sure about Daniels long term sustainability and McCarthy can sit a year while he learns the offense. He is young and could learn a lot. I traded one pick to Buffalo in the fifth to pick up two picks there seeing as there was no one that jumped out at me there. Here is the draft.

 

[VJCPatriot]

In this draft Williams and Maye went 1 and 2. I traded back with the Chargers who took Marvin Harrison Jr. at 3 and still managed to land Jayden Daniels at 5. Got two good athletic OTs in Guyton and Fisher as well as two good athletic WR prospects with Legette and Wilson. Maybe the other sim teams shouldn't give me as much in the trade backs but realism aside, how did I do?



Trades: