Sure they've gotten a lot of comp picks but beyond Brady, their comp picks really haven't amounted to much. I like the theory, it's more trade ballast and more lottery ticket chances for a good player, but for the most part it's yet to bear fruit. The calculus had changed now that comp picks can be traded, of course, but I admit I'm a bit perplexed by this narrative given the history of Patriots' comp picks.
Last year's was a throw-in in the Cooks deal, so that matters in some sense. In 2017 it was traded for O'Shaughnessy. The year before you got Vincent Valentine, KGH, Elandon Roberts, and Karras. Fine, I guess, though the ones who last the longest were throwaway 7ths. Then there's Geneo Grissom, Xzavier ****son, Cameron Fleming, three years with no comp picks, Brandon Deaderick, Kade Weston, Ted Larsen, Zac Robinson, Tyrone McKenzie, George Bussey, Myron Pryor, Clint Oldenburg, Justise Hairston, Mike Elgin, Dan Stevenson, LeKevin Smith, and Nick Kaczur.
Elandon Roberts is the best player of that group. Some have been bit players on good teams, but this whole narrative seems to me like sportswriters praising it as an unambiguously good strategy because it must be because Belichick is the one doing it.