It feels like 11 seasons and will be 11 seasons on this current draft course. The Pats have an opportunity to add 4 good players that can help the team win a Championship now. We know the Pats can get in the post season and with luck get to the Super Bowl.
I think this really hits at the heart of the matter. The assumption by those that think the Pats draft strategy is all wrong, and that they are lousy player evaluators seems to hold roots in the belief that every early draft pick should be at bare minimum a solid starter for the next ten years. The reality is that even with early picks you're only going to hit on about 50% of your picks, and even the best of the competition will swing and miss (e.g., Baltimore's Segio Kindle, Yamon Figurs, etc.) on occasion.
The Pats will probably trade a 1st and a 2nd for more late picks in this draft and the next one. The premise is to try to get a great player after round 4 so the rest of the NFL can marvel at what a deal you got. Always looking for that next Tom Brady.
If you had paid attention to Belichick at all over his career you would have noticed the one thing he does not give a rat's azz about is his public perception. There are plenty of NFL coaches, general managers and owners whose actions are motivated more by ego and public approval than anything else; Belichick is certainly not part of that group.
The companion part of the argument above that is flawed is the belief that simply having a future Hall of Fame quarterback should result in league championships every two or three years. That is highly unlikely because free agency means good players are lost, and the salary cap makes it difficult to remain competitive.
From 2001-2004 Brady was very early in his career; as a result he took up a much smaller percentage of the team's cap than he does today. That in turns means there is a smaller amount of cap space available for complimentary players, and that in turn makes it harder to keep winning championships.
The team has won 3 championships in 11 years (10 years if you exclude '08) with Brady as the starter; yet many act as if that 27% (or 30%) rate should be higher; why?
From the current cap/FA era Peyton Manning is 1/13 (1/14 if you include '11), or 8%; Brett Favre was 2/19 (11%); John Elway was 2/16 (13%); Kurt Warner was 1/8 (13%), plus 4 years starting less than half his team's games; Drew Brees is 1/10 (10%). The only ones with comparable success ratios are Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger, both of whom are 2/8 (25%), and Aaron Rodgers, who is also at 25% (1/4).
If you look further back in NFL history even the legends that were on teams that did not have to deal with the cap and free agency had relatively low 'success' rates, as success is being defined by some as nothing short of a league championship. The great Joe Montana was 4/15, 27%. NFL legend Johnny Unitas was 2/14 (14%), plus four seasons he wasn't the starter. The only quarterbacks with appreciably better success rates were Bart Starr with one of the greatest dynasties in all of sports (5/14, 36%) and Otto Graham (3/10, 30%). Steve Young was 1/9 (11%); Troy Aikman 3/12 (25%); Dan Marino 0/17 (0%); Terry Bradshaw 4/14 (28%).
Can the Patriots do a better job at drafting? Of, course, absolutely they can! But guess what: there's plenty of room for improvement in that department for all 32 NFL teams.
It is reasonable to want the Pats to draft better, and likewise it is normal to want them to win the Super Bowl every year. However, it is unreasonable to expect every early round pick to turn into a ten-year starter or better, and likewise it is unreasonable to expect this, or any other team to win the Super Bowl every other year.
