This years draft haul

[One-If-By-Sea]

Yes, I would! Lloyd makes the team demonstratively better, Zappe is a back up QB at best, which means if you are playing him, you've already lost. Jones could have been drafted with the third round pick they already had. And Carolina's 2023 3rd round pick will most likely be another reach.

1-3!!

BB traded Mason for NOTHING!! He shipped the 5th round pick for a 6th and 7th round pick and cut both players! Harris is back on the practice squad and Stueber is on IR.

BB Traded 21 for Strange, Jones and a 3rd round pick.

The Cardinals trade #23 for Marquis Brown and a 3rd round pick.

Which trade would you rather have?

You know nothing about football and are proud of it. Good for you.

 

[FreeTedWilliams]

You know nothing about football and are proud of it. Good for you.

played in college, coached it for years, when was the last time a guard was the MVP of the league? or the SB?

 

[One-If-By-Sea]

It has nothing to do with a guard as a MVP. Do I prefer Lloyd over Strange? ABSOLUTELY. 100%. But we are not picking for a MVP, we are drafting to build a team of 53 men.

You played and coached and are still chasing stars instead of building a team? Hard to believe.

 

[upstater1]

Strange still feels like a pick taken a round too early. I'd rather have Devin Lloyd patrolling in our linebacker group right now. Did you see how AWFUL Tavai looked when asked to tackle in space? In fact we're so desperate at linebacker that we took back a guy we cut three times in Jamie Collins! LOL.

Yet we read stories that other teams were going to take him within another 10 picks or so.

Look, let's wait. Because we don't even know how Tyquan, Jack Jones, Marcus Jones etc. are going to turn out.

If you take Devin Lloyd and by some luck wait to grab Strange in the back half of the 2nd round, then you don't take Tyquan, you won't get Marcus, and you may miss out on Jack Jones too.

 

[jah]

played in college, coached it for years, when was the last time a guard was the MVP of the league? or the SB?

When was the last time a standup linebacker won MVP?

 

[FreeTedWilliams]

When was the last time a standup linebacker won MVP?

Von Miller was the MVP of the Superbowl

 

[patsinthesnow]

NFL rookie rankings at Q1 of 2022 season: Multiple reps for Jets, Packers, Seahawks, three others

Jack Jones at #13 & the 2nd CB so far

 

[BaconGrundleCandy]

Any draft post that includes "we could have picked this player rather than this player" is automatically disqualified from relevance. There are only a handful of picks across the entire draft every year that turn out to literally be the best player available at that time.

It gets annoying. Especially when people don't give clear cut opinions before the draft. We have a bunch of posters that like to play that game and I'm not talking about @captain stone. I know he gets a lot of grief but we have a few posters here who love talking about stuff after the fact without giving their opinions before the action starts. That's beyond old and even some of the old draft forum guys are guilty of it.

Its tough. You need to have some accountability and consequence and allow people to take chances. Pats/Bill are unique though bc of Bill's tenure and security.

We keep talking about evaluating the draft without first talking about how to evaluate a draft.

I'm in work but a few quick ones ...

Short term - simply compare their play to other rookies and go from there on a scale from rook to vet. Also other rookies at the same position who have come in recently. Add in some context for players around them, overall team, maybe a position switch etc

It's not unreasonable to expect contributions from top 64 guys. I think we all can agree on what those would be for certain positions. Playing time, snaps

Long term - second contracts - only 30% of prospects drafted get signed to second contracts to the same team. That's a good indication of how much a team wants a player. Teams should probably be leveraging early picks for established vets at that % considering injuries, learning a new system, learning curve in general etc

Pro bowl/All-Pro selections

Look at the overall draft class regardless of position and see how they shape up.

Just ask me. I have a better handle on that stuff than most.

Project much? Wow.
If you actually did some reading before reacting, you'd see I'm anything but a loyalist to any coach or player.
Here's the logic behind the draft guessing game: the first 198 draft picks in the 2000 draft were all completely wrong. Every single team made utterly awful mistakes, multiple times, with their most valuable draft picks.

I love living in alternate places and always think about "what if" if this prospect would have been drafted by this team. One of my favorites is Randy Moss and the Rams. They could of had him Warner, Faulk and Bruce on the same team. They got Holt the next year but those 4 would have been unbelievable to watch.

 

[upstater1]

It gets annoying. Especially when people don't give clear cut opinions before the draft. We have a bunch of posters that like to play that game and I'm not talking about @captain stone. I know he gets a lot of grief but we have a few posters here who love talking about stuff after the fact without giving their opinions before the action starts. That's beyond old and even some of the old draft forum guys are guilty of it.

Its tough. You need to have some accountability and consequence and allow people to take chances. Pats/Bill are unique though bc of Bill's tenure and security.

I'm in work but a few quick ones ...

Short term - simply compare their play to other rookies and go from there on a scale from rook to vet. Also other rookies at the same position who have come in recently. Add in some context for players around them, overall team, maybe a position switch etc

It's not unreasonable to expect contributions from top 64 guys. I think we all can agree on what those would be for certain positions. Playing time, snaps

Long term - second contracts - only 30% of prospects drafted get signed to second contracts to the same team. That's a good indication of how much a team wants a player. Teams should probably be leveraging early picks for established vets at that % considering injuries, learning a new system, learning curve in general etc

Pro bowl/All-Pro selections

Look at the overall draft class regardless of position and see how they shape up.

Just ask me. I have a better handle on that stuff than most.

I love living in alternate places and always think about "what if" if this prospect would have been drafted by this team. One of my favorites is Randy Moss and the Rams. They could of had him Warner, Faulk and Bruce on the same team. They got Holt the next year but those 4 would have been unbelievable to watch.

It's such a convenient argument to say, why N'Keal Harry instead of Metcalf? What I always find telling about these arguments when a pick busts is the fact that players like Arceda-Whiteside, Isabella, Hardman, and Parris Campbell were all taken before Metcalf. But they are never mentioned in this "What If?" arguments.

5 out of the 8 receivers taken before Metcalf haven't worked out. Only 2 are producing for the teams that picked them.

That's 2 out of 8.

 

[FredFromDartmouth]

It is very possible that the Patriots traded back to 29 in the hope that Devin Lloyd would still be there. He went at 27 so it was a near miss. It is also possible that the Patriots could have traded back again and hoped that Strange was still there but could not find a trade partner.

All in all it seems that the Patriots did really well with the trade back from 21 since they got Strange, Jones, Zappe, and Carolina's 3d in 2023. You can get a really good player in the third and if Carolina keeps losing....

 

[venecol]

Yes, it's a good read. Here are a few comments...


He's probably getting "more comfortable" which is only natural however I think his play has been really inconsistent including against the Packers. The draft selection is grading higher than originally, so that's good, but we'll see if he becomes more dependable over the course of the season.


Why did it take a few weeks? (I'm asking Bill.) Jones is clearly ready as a return specialist. Overall my feeling is he'll eventually need to find a role with the defense to be a worthy 3rd round selection.


I think "future star" is a bit premature but he did make a complete fool of Aaron Rodgers. Again, not sure why he was playing so soft in the OT... maybe that came from the sideline, or he was being too cautious, either way it didn't work.


As it turned out it really wasn't "near-impossible" at all. They probably should have won the game with their final offensive possession in OT. Zappe benefitted greatly from a very strong running game and most of his completions were to wide open receivers. The TD pass shouldn't have happened due to the blatant delay of game and you have to wonder if that didn't throw off the Packers defense. Still, I agree there is something to be said for Zappe's poise in this game and even though they were running a vanilla offense he seemed mostly in command of it.

I think too Zappe's in a real advantageous spot against Detroit's porous defense... they should protect him with an effective running game and pick their spots for the passing game. If it turns into a shootout, which I think is unlikely, Detroit's pass defense is terrible. Zappe should walk away from this game looking pretty good. In the long term his (lack of) arm strength is really going to hold him back.

Ok Debbie Downer.

 

[venecol]

Any draft post that includes "we could have picked this player rather than this player" is automatically disqualified from relevance. There are only a handful of picks across the entire draft every year that turn out to literally be the best player available at that time.

We keep talking about evaluating the draft without first talking about how to evaluate a draft.

Sure, but where's the fun in that?

 

[venecol]

Again he is a guard! Unless you are awful, all their play is basically equal. It's the truth. Everyone says "Mankins was a "first round pick" I'm pretty sure the Pats didn't win a single SB in all the years they had Mankins. Please show me how the Pats are any better with Strange than Mason, or even Ferentz for that matter. They are 1-3 and lucky to be that. Strange will not move the needle one way or the other, you want playmakers in the first round, not working pieces.

From a draft efficiency/contract point of view a Guard is not the best pick in the 1st round. The best are QB, OT, DE, WR, CB with the explosion in their contracts.

2022 1st Rd picks:
WR: 6
EDGE/DE: 5
OT: 5
CB/DB: 4
S: 3
G: 3
DT: 2
LB: 2
C: 1
QB: 1

 

[venecol]

They've got Pats with the 2023 10th pick already? WTF

 

[venecol]

Not good.



BTW, for those arguing that it's because Pats always pick towards the back of the rounds, I believe the Chiefs also picked in the later part of the rounds. I think we just need to face the fact that poor drafts have depleated this team of talent. It is what it is.

 

[VrabelJr]

played in college, coached it for years, when was the last time a guard was the MVP of the league? or the SB?

I usually like your posts but I can't get on the Shaq Mason trade regrets train. He looks like **** and is expensive. Strange is on pace to be a top 10 draft pick in a redraft and makes 1/5th of what Thuney made.

 

[VrabelJr]

Not good.



BTW, for those arguing that it's because Pats always pick towards the back of the rounds, I believe the Chiefs also picked in the later part of the rounds. I think we just need to face the fact that poor drafts have depleated this team of talent. It is what it is.

No doubt 2019 and 2020 were horrendous drafts. 2019, I can't even defend. I'm not even going to name names. Thank god we got Damien Harris and Jake Bailey at least. Hopefully Yodney Cajuste gets healthy some day. 2020 has looked very top heavy and bad for just about everyone. I still believe we wanted Justin Jefferson and that's why we traded out.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

Strange is on pace to be a top 10 draft pick in a redraft and makes 1/5th of what Thuney made.

Strange is so physically gifted that you almost have to ask why no one in the ACC or SEC poached him.

 

[FreeTedWilliams]

They've got Pats with the 2023 10th pick already? WTF

that's the Texans, they have a half game lead on the Pats for the #1 pick at 0-3-1

 

[TomPatriot]

Not good.



BTW, for those arguing that it's because Pats always pick towards the back of the rounds, I believe the Chiefs also picked in the later part of the rounds. I think we just need to face the fact that poor drafts have depleated this team of talent. It is what it is.

What’s interesting about this list is that it covers the last two drafts, where the Pats choices seem to have been much better. Yet the Pats are still last.

It doesn’t count the bad 2017 (only 4 picks and only Wise has had any impact) and 2018 (Wynn, Harry, etc.). Only Bentley is still around from 2018.

Drafting is a weird process, though. Mayock was a great draft guru but made pretty poor choices when he became Raiders’ GM. Some teams are great at certain positions - Steelers at WR for decades.