Pats director of college scouting Jon Robinson discusses upcoming draft

[PatsFans.com Article]

Pats director of college scouting Jon Robinson discusses upcoming draft
By: John Morgan

Just a few days after Nick Caserio's very informative conference on the draft process, Patriot's director of college scouting Jon Robinson expands on that seminar in an interview...

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[Patspsycho]

I disagree- it's not a smokescreen that the Patriots are evaluating the QB's, not that they will draft them, but they're doing their due diligence and finding out the exact value of those quarterbacks (medically and character speaking) and talking to them and getting a feel for who's also sniffing around them. That way they have a pretty good idea of how the board will shape up on draft day.

The more quarterbacks that go earlier, the better it is for us. Get some return on sliding down.

 

[eom]

this guy says it must be a smokescreen because we supposedly don't need a qb yet, but they drafted o'connell in the 3rd 3 years ago?
how does he explain that?

 

[jmt57]

this guy says it must be a smokescreen because we supposedly don't need a qb yet, but they drafted o'connell in the 3rd 3 years ago?
how does he explain that?

I think there were a couple of differences with that draft in comparison to this one.

First, due to free agency and trades, the Pats were pretty well set going into that draft. By comparison the Pats have several positions in legitimate need of an upgrade despite going 14-2 last year: outside linebacker, defensive end, guard, tackle, running back. You can also make a case for bringing in a wide receiver, center, safety and cornerback with an eye on 2012. In other words, lots of other positions that should probably be considered higher priorities than quarterback.

At least one of the top six picks that are in the first three rounds this year will be traded out into the 2012 draft. Right now the Pats only have five picks in 2012; their 6th was traded away for Tracy White; a 7th was traded for Jarrad Page; and another 7th went to Minnesota in the Randy Moss trade. I wouldn't doubt that a late-round pick gets traded away for a 2012 pick also.

In addition, the 2007 draft was very weak. My guess is that the Patriots wanted to trade out and into the following year, but couldn't find any takers.

The article does not say the Pats won't draft a quarterback; it just implies that it is doubtful that the Pats will use an early pick on one.

The choice of Kevin O'Connell was in my opinion the worst draft pick during the Belichick era. While others such as Chad Jackson may be labeled by some as bigger busts, drafting O'Connell made the least sense of any draft pick at the time the choice was made of any over the last eleven years.

 

[eom]

well, talent busts aside, you guys make it sound like we know brady will be on the field another 4 years, and I don't think we can ever know for certain who will be there and who won't.
didn't brady get his chance when bledsoe got knocked out?

why not just roll with a single qb and keep our fingers crossed?
not only do you need depth at every position, but qb in particular is a position that benefits from sitting on the bench a couple years.

I'm not saying we should or shouldn't take qb, or any other position over qb, just that it's not so ridiculous to think that qb could be drafted.
like some guy said in another post, it worked out ok for gb and sf to have a good young qb behind their aging star.

 

[jmt57]

well, talent busts aside, you guys make it sound like we know brady will be on the field another 4 years, and I don't think we can ever know for certain who will be there and who won't.
didn't brady get his chance when bledsoe got knocked out?

why not just roll with a single qb and keep our fingers crossed?
not only do you need depth at every position, but qb in particular is a position that benefits from sitting on the bench a couple years.

I'm not saying we should or shouldn't take qb, or any other position over qb, just that it's not so ridiculous to think that qb could be drafted.
like some guy said in another post, it worked out ok for gb and sf to have a good young qb behind their aging star.

Yes, it did work out for GB and SF

Thing is SF with Montana and Young was before free agency and the salary cap, so we're comparing apples to oranges. The rules are completely different now.


Rodgers in Green Bay was a unique situation. Favre was flip flopping when asked if he would return or retire, and was at an age and point of production that the team was well within its rights and responsibilities to look for another QB.

The draft just happened to fall to a point where Rodgers was still available where nobody expected him to be, and it was the Packers turn to make a pick.

At that point Rodgers not only represented the best value among players for any team, he was even a better value to the Packers because it looked like they would need a new starting QB that year, or at most the following year.

Nobody, especially the Packers, envisioned Rodgers riding the pine for as long as he did.


Bottom line is that the Pats are probably better off drafting a player from any position other than ILB, TE, LS, P and K rather than a QB in the first three rounds. After that a QB is fine, but in my opinion the team is better off not drafting a QB early this year.