SOCIAL DISTANCING AT HOME \u2013 Honk if you thought the 2020 NFL Draft was the best presentation of this event you have ever seen.<\/p>\n
It began as a nondescript event at some New York City hotel.\u00a0 Eventually the affair moved to Radio City Music Hall, and it turned into a major ESPN event.\u00a0 Then the NFL Network provided competition, and turned the event into Super Bowl Junior.\u00a0 It was astounding, to say the least.\u00a0 Eventually the NBA and NHL followed suit, and their drafts are now major events held at various indoor arenas across the nation.<\/p>\n
But the NFL took it further.\u00a0 It began at Grant Park in Chicago, with an outdoor bash that really did resemble the Super Bowl.\u00a0 Last year, in the small yet up and coming city of Nashville, they estimated 600,000 people jammed into that city\u2019s main drag (which up to that point was must-see only for Grand Ole Opry fans).\u00a0 For this year\u2019s event in Las Vegas, the new home of the Raiders, they estimated 750,000 to cram the much-more-famous-than-Nashville Las Vegas Strip.\u00a0 The idea of this mega-event in the entertainment capital of the desert southwest, and the gambling mecca of the world, was certainly thought provoking.\u00a0 After what the Vegas Golden Knights did to revolutionize player introductions in the 2018 Stanley Cup Final (which the GKs made in their first year of existence), you had to think that you would see the greatest show this side of the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
Oops.\u00a0 This flu bug broke out in Wuhan, some 655 miles south of Beijing, and the entire planet has been turned upside down.<\/p>\n
Three-quarters of a million people on the Vegas Strip was no longer a possibility.\u00a0 Three people on the Strip is pushing it, assuming they stay six feet apart.\u00a0 Positive tests go up, the global death toll mounts, and even though some people think they are being held hostage by the stay at home orders, you really can\u2019t be too careful.\u00a0 Life in general remains on hold most everywhere on the planet, as we wait and wait for this pandemic to abate and life to return to normal.<\/p>\n
The NFL was forced to scrap its plans for Las Vegas and hold a virtual draft.\u00a0 Next year they will be in Cleveland, but will return to Vegas in 2022.\u00a0 So while Vegas now delays its grand plans 2 years, it\u2019s now time for computers, communication systems and the Internet to run the draft.\u00a0 Everyone stays at home.\u00a0 We are all at the mercy of webcams, computers, cell phones, and some very important thing called bandwidth.<\/p>\n
What resulted was the most enjoyable draft in terms of watching in recent memory, perhaps of all time.<\/p>\n
You name it, it was endearing.\u00a0 John Harbaugh celebrating a third-round draft pick in his mancave.\u00a0 Mike Vrabel and his controversial setup on Thursday night.\u00a0 All these children of the principals hanging out with their dads while the draft was ongoing.\u00a0 Former Patriot backup QB Kliff Kingsbury, now the HC at Arizona, rocking out that incredible casa of his.\u00a0 Washington QB Jacob Eason\u2019s girlfriend looking disgusted on the sofa as he languished into the third day before finally being taken by the Colts.\u00a0 And my favorite, a dog sitting at the dinner table in the seat normally occupied by Bill Belichick, at his Nantucket compound.\u00a0 Perhaps that dog is from Hickory, North Carolina, and advised the coach on who to trade down to get in Round 2.<\/p>\n
Even loathsome NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was tolerable, coming from his basement mancave at his home in Bronxville, NY.\u00a0 He had 15 fans for each team on a flatscreen TV with orders to boo him when their team\u2019s pick was being announced.\u00a0 He looked more human without that corporate suit on.\u00a0 Yet he was getting a bit fatigued as the third round neared conclusion, as he normally does only the first round.<\/p>\n
Of course, the main commentary in New England is not who they took in the draft, but rather, who they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Everyone expected the Patriots to take a quarterback, and possibly trade up to take one.\u00a0 Maybe they make a deal with Detroit to move up to three and take Tua Tagovailoa.\u00a0 Or Justin Herbert.\u00a0 Maybe they trade up to take Jalen Hurts or Jordan Love.<\/p>\n
Nope.\u00a0 The Patriots did draft for need versus value, but none of them were quarterbacks.<\/p>\n
They traded out of the first round on Thursday night and picked first at #37 on Friday.\u00a0 Their selection was Kyle Dugger, a safety from Division 2 Lenoir-Rhyne College in the aforementioned Hickory, NC.\u00a0 You have heard of him only if you have no life.\u00a0 Seriously, he projects to be the next Patrick Chung, did terrific at the combine and the Senior Bowl, and has freakish talent.\u00a0 But against Division 2 opponents, one has to be careful about gauging his ability in the NFL.<\/p>\n
Lenoir-Rhyne\u2019s record in 2019 was 13-1.\u00a0 Their only loss was the last game of the season, 43-38 to eventual champ West Florida in the Division 2 quarterfinal round.\u00a0 Dugger will fit in just fine here in Foxborough.<\/p>\n
With glaring needs at linebacker, tight end and kicker, Belichick addressed each need.\u00a0 He landed Michigan linebacker Josh Uche in the second round with pick #60, then snagged another linebacker with the 87th<\/sup> pick in the third round, Anfernee Jennings of Alabama.\u00a0 Both players look to help offset the losses of Kyle Van Noy and Jamie Collins to free agency.\u00a0 Uche is reunited with Michigan teammate Chase Winovich, while Jennings has a Bama buddy in Dont\u2019a Hightower.<\/p>\n The next two picks went to tight end.\u00a0 He took both in the third round, Devin Asiasi of UCLA (pick #91) and Dalton Keene of Virginia Tech (pick # 101).\u00a0 This was the first time since 2010 that Belichick took 2 tight ends in the first four rounds, and it\u2019s also coincidental that Asiasi\u2019s skill set resembles Rob Gronkowski (good size, great blocker), while Keene\u2019s resembles the late Aaron Hernandez (can play H-back, great versatility).\u00a0 Another oddity is that Asiasi knew Uche from his days at Michigan before transferring to UCLA, and knew Keene from a camp they attended.<\/p>\n Without a fourth-round pick, Belichick had to wait until the fifth round to fill his next area of need.\u00a0 He took a kicker, Marshall\u2019s Justin Rohrwasser with pick #159.\u00a0 He now becomes the only kicker on the Patriot roster, with Belichick waiving Stephen Gostkowski earlier this year.\u00a0 The rest of the draft was mostly offensive line depth and another linebacker, with Michigan G Michael Onwenu (pick #182), Wake Forest T Justin Herron (pick #195) in the sixth round, and Memphis C Dustin Woodard (pick # 230) in the seventh round.\u00a0 Wyoming LB Cassh Maluia (pick #204) was taken in the sixth round.\u00a0 Onwenu provides possible insurance if the team cannot keep Joe Thuney beyond 2020, while Herron projects as a guard in the NFL.<\/p>\n Now, whither the quarterback position?\u00a0 Nick Caserio, director of player personnel (and also in the Patriot selection process, along with Bob and Jonathan Kraft), told reporters that he expects the Patriots to get a third quarterback at some point.\u00a0 He did not mention how or where or when they would get that third quarterback.\u00a0 Right now, one may consider that the Patriots have a lot of faith in Jarrett Stidham at the top of the depth chart with Brian Hoyer right behind him.<\/p>\n Who knows.\u00a0 Maybe Belichick\u2019s pooch has the answer.\u00a0 This could end up with the defense playing tough, and Stidham just managing the game without trying to win it.\u00a0 Hey, it worked for Peyton Manning in Super Bowl 50.\u00a0 In any case, the Patriots did not address the quarterback position in the draft, and some draft graders knocked the Patriot grade down for just that reason.<\/p>\n Otherwise, not much to complain about.\u00a0 There were no technical glitches in the draft that we heard of.\u00a0 Patriot fans hate it when Belichick trades down, and he only traded down once while trading up four times.\u00a0 Tight end, linebacker and kicker are no longer areas of great concern.<\/p>\n Sorry, Cleveland, but this writer votes for another virtual draft next year, with no pandemic making it mandatory.\u00a0 This was fun television.\u00a0 Ratings were high, but everyone was home, so that\u2019s nothing amazing.\u00a0 Let\u2019s have more mancaves, more families, more creative usage of all this wonderful technology that wasn\u2019t there when the first combined draft took place in 1967.\u00a0 This draft was fun.<\/p>\n Then again, you never know.\u00a0 Maybe it won\u2019t be safe for a million people to head for Cleveland even with the pandemic hopefully declared over.\u00a0 You folks at Amazon, Verizon and Microsoft, stay ready.\u00a0 You might be in for it again next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Honk if you thought the 2020 NFL Draft was the best presentation of this event you have ever seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":28199,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patriots-news"],"yoast_head":"\n