I know if he keeps drafting like this we will keep only going to 4 SBs and winning 3 of them every 5 years.
What do you think the consequences should be if he doesn’t accomplish what he “really needs to do”?
How many more drafts that you don’t like can we put up with before we should fire his ass?
I agree with your viewpoint far more than I disagree. I think there's still room for an interesting discussion. We've gotten great production from key contributors; we've also seen a lot of question marks. Thankfully, the contributions outweigh the missed time due to injuries. Last year's rookie class mostly ended up on IR, although Michel and Jackson (UDFA) really pulled through down the stretch. We may not win without those two. Two high end starters for cheap counts as a major hit in my book. Overall, that makes last year's draft a big success, even if most of the players ended up on IR.
The draft is overrated -- it's only a tiny part of team building, although its value is in inexpensive 4 or 5 year contracts. Would it be nice to have some cheap, young contributors? Yeah, of course no team will turn that down. But is it fair to judge Belichick's drafts purely on the basis of the
non-contributors? I think that's a bit reductionist.
Belichick is the best in the business at identifying players who can help (at the right price point) and he uses trades, free agency, the draft, undrafted free agency, etc, to build the team. He's not married to one way of acquiring talent, and I think the results speak for themselves, as you've pointed out above. People get too worked up about draft grades, or wanting every single player in a 20 rookie class (I'm including UDFA) to pan out. The reality is that every team will swing and miss, but as long as we're hitting on a few players, that's enough.
I would suggest that the last few drafts are considered "poor" by outsiders or pessimistic fans, but they're ignoring that we've had really poor luck with injuries. There's no way to know ahead of time that Garcia would develop blood clots in his lungs, or that Wynn would tear his achilles in a freak accident, or that someone would dive into the back of Mitchell's knees and end his career after he'd overcome similar injuries.
Just look at the players who missed significant time over the last few years:
New England Patriots All-Time Draft History | Pro-Football-Reference.com
On the flip side, when we've found good players, they've been essential to our success. Look at how strong our interior OL is right now -- one of the very best in the league -- and you'll see players that were all drafted or brought in as UDFA. I'd say that's key to the Super Bowl win. If we couldn't handle Suh and Donald, we don't win last year.
Oh, and one of the defensive players, Flowers, just signed a record contract in FA. Does that count as hitting on a talent? I forgot; he's just a system rusher and doesn't count.
