I am absolutely fine with getting two 2010 seconds and all the players we secured from pick 41 onward.
Then and now, I would rather have Laurinitis (LB) and Will Moore (S) instead of Chung and Brace. Presumably, we would also still have drafted McKenzie.
PICK 23
I would not touch what we did with the 23rd pick. We ended up with Butler, Edelman, Tate and a 2010 2nd rounder for the pick after all the trades down.
PICK 34
LAURINITIS instead of Chung
PICK 40
I give Belichick the benefit of the doubt. If we don't trade up to 40, someone else might have and then taken, Butler. So the question is Brace or someone else.
MOORE instead of Brace.
However, since we are in 100% hindsight, we really didn't need a corner since we were getting McGowan, so UNGER or LEVITRE might have been even better.
We went into the draft with first day picks at 23, 34, 47 and 58. We traded back from 23 (twice), eventually ending up with 41. We traded up from 47 to 40.
We got
absurd value for our #23 pick. Michael Oher looks good so far, but I don't think you can possibly argue that we didn't get tremendous value for our pick, trading back twice but still getting Darius Butler at #41 and essentially picking up two 2010 2nd round picks.
Sebastian Vollmer looks like a stud so far. I would have taken OT William Beatty at #58, but I'm thrilled with Vollmer at this point.
So for me the only question is the #34 and 40 picks. I agree with MgT that moving up to 40 was a good move, as (1) someone might have taken Butler, and (2) a lot of good players went between 40 and 47. As of right now, Patrick Chung and Ron Brace aren't contributing much, but the Pats tend to take the conservative approach with rookies. We are all holding our breath a bit and hoping they'll be more in the Brandon Meriweather mold than in the Chad Jackson mold.
At 34 I would have preferred (and still would) Louis Delmas to Chung at S, but he went one pick earlier. Given Brandon McGowan's unexpected impact, I probably wouldn't take a S at all. I would have used #34 on a DE/OLB - Connor Barwin being my choice, but Everette Brown and Clint Sintim being reasonable alternatives.
I still don't think Maualuga is a good fit for the Pats. Laurinaitis is a nice player, but we have Mayo and Guyton. Laurinaitis (6'2", 247#) has started 4 games for the Rams at MLB, has been the defensive signal caller, and has 34 tackles and 0 PD so far. Guyton (6'3", 245+#) took over at MLB and WILB for Mayo week 1, has started 4 games so far, has been the defensive signal caller since week 2, and has 26 tackles and 1 PD so far.
I'll stick with Ron Brace at 40 for now. My ideal would have been Delmas at 34 and Barwin at 40, but the Lions killed that option.