I think the general fan may disagree here, but that certainly doesn't make them right or your opinion wrong since people tend to see things differently; however, from a period of 2006 thru 2012 we have the following 2nd round picks (good, solid, proven picks are underlined):
2006--Chad Jackson
2007--no selections
2008--Terrance Wheatley
2009--Patrick Chung, Ron Brace, Darius Butler, Sebastian Vollmer
2010--Rob Gronkowski, Jermaine Cunningham, Brandon Spikes
2011--Ras-I-Dowling, Shane Vereen
2012--Tavon Wilson
That gives us a current total of 12 second round selections, with 3 "solid" picks who have contributed on a consistent basis. That's obviously a success rate of 25%, and a failure rate of 75%. I didn't underline or consider Vereen a "solid, proven, consistent" player since he has not really contributed thus far in his 3rd year. Obviously we would hope to revisit this at the end of the year and see Vereen as a proven pick.
If you take it one round further into the 3rd round, you'd have the following selections since 2006:
2006--David Thomas
2007--no selections
2008--Shawn Crable, Kevin O'Connell
2009--Brandon Tate, Tyrone McKenzie
2010--Taylor Price
2011--Steven Ridley, Ryan Mallett
2012--Jake Bequette
The third round gives us a total of 9 selections, with only 1 solid, proven contributor on a consistent basis. The choices of David Thomas/Ryan Mallett could also be combined for a half-point apiece under their circumstances, although that is just my opinion. It's also possible to give them 1.5 out of 2, but I wouldn't agree with seeing them both as "proven, solid, consistent" players who have contributed.
All in all, the 3rd round gives us a total of 2/9 success rate of 22%, with a failure rate of 78%.
If we add up the 2nd + 3rd round selections in the past 7 years, we'd get a total of 21 picks. There have arguably been 5/21 picks that have contributed on a consistent basis, or a success rate of 23.8%. That is obviously significantly lower than most other NFL teams.
I have two issues with this perspective.
1) It's not about hit percentage; it's about total number of hits. The whole reason why the Patriots trade down and stockpile draft picks is because it enables them to get contributing players even with misses.
If the Pats can come out of the second round with a solid NFL starter, then that's a success. If, in order to get there, they traded back a year to stockpile extra draft ammo and some of it ended up busting, then I really don't care. I'd rather see the team have three picks and hit on two of them then go 1 for 1, although your evaluation would seem to prefer the latter.
2) I think the general argument is that the Pats have done well with mid-round picks since Pioli left. I think we can all agree that the last few years under Pioli produced some really bad draft classes, which left a talent gap that plagued the team in 2009, especially, and also somewhat in 2010. Take out 2006-2008, however, and you have a much better picture for the Patriots' draft picks:
Second round:
2009
Chung: whiff
Brace: whiff
Butler: whiff on the Patriots, has become a legit starting CB elsewhere
Vollmer: hit
2010
Gronk: grand slam
Cunningham: whiff
Spikes: hit
2011
Dowling: whiff
Vereen: hit. He's shown more than enough to declare that he was a good pick
2012
Wilson: whiff
In short: over the four year span between 2009 and 2012, the second round produced four starters for the Patriots, of which one is an All-Pro caliber player. Any team in the league would take that. You may care that it took 10 picks to produce those four hits, but I certainly don't. That's the Patriots' philosophy. Even if I did care, a 40% hit rate is pretty good, and excellent when one of your hits is Gronk. You could make a very good case that the Patriots have gotten the most productivity out of their second round picks in that span of all NFL teams. And to think that it could have been even better if the team had just been a little more patient with Butler. It was clear to this fan, at least, that he had the talent to get the job done even as a rookie.
Third round
2009
Tate: whiff on the Patriots, decent contributor elsewhere.
McKenzie: whiff - tore his ACL in OTAs, never got to see if he was a good player
2010
Price: whiff
Ridley: hit. Are people seriously saying that he might not be a hit as a
third-round pick because he fumbles the ball too much? That's crazy
2012
Bequette: whiff
One hit in four years, and that hit is a fringe Pro Bowl caliber player. I'll take it. It's not amazing or anything, but it's not bad.
Fourth round
2009
Ohrnberger: whiff
2010
Hernandez: hit. I'd even call it a home run, and cringe while doing so.
Hard to evaluate, since the Patriots have made a habit of using their fourth rounders as trade ammo, but one starter in four years is actually pretty good once you're this far down in the draft.
