He makes a lot of moves, and takes a lot of fliers on players who were mediocre/bad elsewhere. Failures are inherent when that's your approach. The problem around here is that the homers defend almost ever freakin' move, the CL's cry about even the longest of longshots, and the serious analysis that could make up the accurate middle rarely gets done anymore.
Want to see where the Patriots have had some issues of late? We don't even need to get into free agency or trades. Take a look at the first and second rounds post-2010.
First round picks:
2011 - Solder
2012 - Hightower
2012 - Jones
2014 - Easley
2015 - Brown
Second round picks:
2011 - Vereen
2011 - Dowling
2012 - Wilson
2013 - Dobson
2013 - Collins
2014 - JAG
2015 - Richards
2016 - Cyrus Jones
Such a difficult thing to compare team to team draft picks overall over a multi year track in order to determine who is drafting well ( a lot of factors from position, to unlucky injury, to current position staff, team schedule, complimentary nature of football where one area affects the play of another etc).
I found one article that had some stats.
Percentage of Total Games Started by 2010 draftees tracked from 2010 - 2015 seasons:
1st 67.5%
2nd 33.8%
3rd 36.3%
4th 6.3%
5th 4.4%
6th 1.9%
7th 0.0%
Note: 2010 draftees started 15% of the games between 2010 - 2015.
2010 All Pros
-1st round picks had a 49% chance to reach first or second team all pro status at least once.
-2nd round picks had a 14% chance to reach first or second team all pro status at least once.
Shockingly, next likeliest round to reach this all pro status at least once? "Undrafted" at 11%
Obviously 2010 could be an aberration. But since the deep stats are so hard to find or even quantify then for arguments sake let's say 2010 is representative. If so then it appears that BB is hitting slightly better on first round and slightly worse on 2nd round. ((I think a good stat to check is BB's undrafted "hits" versus the 11%))
Another interesting item: it appears once you get into the lower rounds the hit/miss between them and undrafted becomes not very distinguishable.
As to BB himself, the Patriots are beyond extremely fortunate to have him as HC/GM despite his mistakes (and he certainly makes mistakes). Not sure what the odd agenda is to suggest he's been more a passenger(even a lucky passenger) to this extreme run of success but to each their own.
