Now the most recent Curran/Perry podcast does a deep dive on this article, starting with Lombardi's feedback on the previous Curran/Perry podcast, and moving into the interview Curran did with BB years ago on the whole vertical/horizontal board prep:
Tom Curran gives an in-depth explanation of Bill Belichick and the Patriots' 'stacks' drafting system. Later, he's joined by Phil Perry to discuss the depth of this year's draft class, New England's past picks and what optional OTAs might look like this season. 0:40 - After hearing some draft...
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So it seems BB and Dave Ziegler (presumed head of player personnel) are the ones who can change the "horizontal board" to move players up based on positional need after they've sorted out the horizontal board (which is a sorted and reconciled result of merging the data from the vertical "stacks" of players sorted by first position then by score/rating).
Note the process does not include a step that brings in the data from draftniks like Mel Kuiper / Daniel Jeremiah / Todd McShay / ...
They point out this is why we get really unexpected picks, some good (Devin McCourty), some bad (Tavon Wilson).
I think we have to realize that all NFL teams and the Patriots in particular have a lot larger staff than any of the draftniks have, have more people dedicated to feeding data into the machine year round (i.e. scouts), have their own processes for coming up with a draft board, and have a much, much, much, much much clearer idea of what their scheme is and how players fit into that scheme.
A good point from the podcast is: We keep hearing about the five premium QBs in the draft, but even if you think all five of these guys are the top five in the Patriots "vertical stack" for the QB position (and someone we know little about hasn't moved into that top five based on the Patriots take on their fit in their system), do you think all five of them end up in the top fifteen of the Patriots "horizontal board"?
Isn't it more likely that the other QB needy teams are over-drafting QBs relative to ranking and this means other position players are now under-valued and available at #15 or at some other position we can move up into?