Every year, before most of us have finished our bacon and eggs on the morning after draft day, they explode onto home pages and inboxes everywhere, and they’re devoured by fans faster than Ron Swanson would devour the aforementioned bacon and eggs. It’s the “DRAFT GRADES”.
Every analyst qualifies that this is a pointless exercise, since they have literally no clue how each of these draft picks will work out, and then skips right along and issues red-pen plus-minus letter grades THE LAST WORD ON THE DRAFT grades anyway.
We are not.
Why?
Because especially for the Patriots, we (or me, at least) don’t have a problem admitting that when it comes to how Bill Belichick will use his shiny new chess pieces, we don’t have a freaking clue.
Here’s some expert reactions to the 2015 draft, from the fine folks at Pats Pulpit:
“Again, I wished they would have done more at CB and WR, and that drops them some, but you can’t say they didn’t get some good players, for a Super Bowl champ, no less.” -Mel Kiper Jr
“Everyone knows what to expect from a Bill Belichick draft every year: at least a couple trades, several smart picks and one or two selections that completely fly in the face of conventional wisdom when it comes to player value.” -Chris Burke, Sports Illustrated
“While Roberts was a very good pick, one of the strengths of this draft was cornerback and New England largely ignored it.” -Dan Kadar, SB Nation
“Brown will be a good player, but I have some questions about Richards and some others in this draft. But it’s hard to argue with the success of this team over the years.” -Pete Prisco, CBS
We could go on, but you get the idea: some of the New England picks were good, some were bargain-basement deals, some were “reaches” and there’s still “holes” and “needs” that “weren’t addressed” and “will probably result in disaster, the dead rising from the grave, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria”.
The problem with looking at a Belichick-coached team wearing your “this team needs X” hat is that if Belichick thought any of the players still on the board when the Patriots were on the clock were worth using a pick on, he would have pulled the trigger, regardless of what round it was or what Jim and Jimbo on ESPN had to say about it. Or the Patriots could have traded back into rounds to grab a player, as Belichick is surprisingly not as hesitant to do as you might think if the player fits. Cases in point, regarding trading up: Rob Gronkowski, Chandler Jones, Dont’a Hightower, special teams captain Matthew Slater, Eugene Wilson, and a handful of others with Super Bowl jewelry.
Here’s a concept: maybe he feels good enough about the corners and receivers on New England’s roster right now that finding a SHUTDOWN corner won’t make or break the defense, and maybe the team that ranked 4th in the NFL in points scored (behind only Philly, Denver, and Green Bay) didn’t need to spend a draft pick on another pass-catcher.
Put it another way: the 2001 Patriots, the ones that de-throned the seemingly already-crowned Greatest Show on Turf in the Super Bowl, had the 24th-ranked passing defense that season. They also had the 6th-ranked team defense in the NFL that season, allowing fewer points than all but 5 teams, and, coincidentally, one point less than the St. Louis Rams. And even with one of the best cornerback tandems in the NFL in 2014, the Patriots were still within a miracle play of losing to a Seattle Seahawks team that needed a Green Bay fourth-quarter meltdown, a touchdown thrown by a kicker, and an onside kick fumble that sent Wisconsin into clinical depression to even make it to the Super Bowl in the first place.
The point isn’t to dog Seattle (ok, maybe a little bit), but to point out that if you’re cheering for the Patriots to go One For The Thumb in 2015, there’s more than one way to do it.