I appreciate that my colleagueSteven Cheah gave the Patriots an A gradeon this draft.
And his opinion seems to be at least in the general vicinity of the consensus.
NFL.com gave them a B.
Pro Football Focus gave them a B+.
CBS Sports an A, and so on.
So good on them.
It’s more like inexact Divination.
For me, this particular draft was not about evaluating the selections.
It was about the selector.
They stayed conservative in free agency, shopping for bargains, sales, mark downs and BOGO deals.
So it’s beenmeet the new boss, same as the old bossto this point.
Which is all well and good.
(While he’s still on the payroll, I should add.)
Why make the change if you’re not going to, you know, change?
Well this draft answered those questions.
We finally got to see the difference between Wolf’s approach to acquiring college talent and his predecessors.
Let us count the ways:
Drafting for need.
Belichick is a famous Best Player Available Guy.
But those worked out.
Other times it didn’t.
Like taking Dominique Easley and Malcom Brown in the 1st in back-to-back years.
And adding just one to the league’s 8th best scoring defense.
This is the classic template every fanbase without a quarterback longs for.
Taking your new QB1 and building around him.
It’s the conventional approach, for once.
Sticking with the picks he had.
Beginning with Drake Maye, where they almost disproved Einstein’s constant with how fast their selection traveled.
But since there were no surprises at Nos.
1 and 2, that made sense.
The picks came up.
You waited for the next one.
The only exception was trading back from No.
34 to 37 in exchange for a move up from the 5th round to the 4th.
Which was the kind of thing Belichick always did just to warm up his trading shoulder.
Speaking of wideouts:
Drafting a wide receiver of supreme confidence.
By now you’ve no doubt met Javon Baker.
If not, strap yourself in.
It’s going to be wild having this rookie around:
Holy cats.
Look, I’m not saying Belichick would never have drafted a player with Baker’s mindset.
Actually, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Honestly, make a run at recall one guy who was this publicly confident, bordering on outright cockiness.
I can’t think of one.
And he told everyone to take the word and shove it up their asses.
But how can you not use “swagger” to describe what Baker is bringing to the table?
Now all he has to do is back it up and he’ll sell a million jerseys around here.
He took an athlete the likes of whom we’ve never witnessed.
Joe Milton III was a late-round flyer, taken in the 6th round, 193rd overall.
And all bets are off with picks like that.
There’s no harm in shooting for the moon.
1 pick:
There have been some unique athletes to come through this franchise.
But no one with Milton’s metahuman abilities.
Rookie camp can’t some soon enough so we get to see what he can do in person.
No special teams picks.
As bad as Chad Ryland as a rookie, I was hoping Wolf would do this very thing.
The good news is, in my class, extra credit is always accepted.
