The New England Patriots’ war room maneuvered the board and found value in the heart of the 2019 NFL draft’s order.
The New England Patriots entered the 2019 NFL draft with 12 selections.
A league-high six of those selections were situated over the initial 101.
But in a record-setting spring for trades, there would be continued movement for head coach Bill Belichick and director of player personnel Nick Caserio’s war room. And it’d see New England trade up three times and down four times after breaking first-round ground with Arizona State wide receiver N’Keal Harry at No. 32 overall on Thursday night.
The phones didn’t get much quieter from there.
Imposing Vanderbilt cornerback Joejuan Williams followed in a hop to No. 45 overall on Friday night.
And by the afternoon hours on Saturday, New England had skipped around the board with their Super Bowl LIII counterpart, the Los Angeles Rams, on three occasions. They’d also dealt with the Minnesota Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Seahawks and Chicago Bears while making 10 picks and obtaining a fourth-rounder for 2020.
The draft’s midst was where the Patriots positioned themselves.
It’d be where they’d hit home.
Draft-Day Dealing
“I think it all depends on what you’re looking for and what you’re trying to do,” Caserio said of the middle-round flurry in Saturday’s post-draft press conference. “I mean, our system and our process is pretty similar just wherever we are. We just try to find players that A., we like and B., we think fit. The draft, it’s an inexact science. For me to sit here and tell you anything different – everybody puts in a lot of time and a lot of resources. And even with that, sometimes it’s a 50-50 proposition. We just try to work through our process and try to stay consistent, and then one thing that we try to do is just work across and work up and down.
“And even when we’re picking players, whatever round it is, sometimes our conversations is, ‘Look, who’s been the most consistently highest-graded player?’ Pick that player as opposed to, ‘Well, there’s another guy over there. Yeah, we like him.’”
Seven of the cards ultimately filled out by New England transpired between the third and fifth rounds.
The Patriots took Michigan defensive end Chase Winovich, Alabama running back Damien Harris and West Virginia offensive tackle Yodny Cajuste at Nos. 77,87 and 101 overall, respectively, in the third.
Arkansas interior lineman Hjalte Froholdt, Auburn quarterback Jarrett Stidham got their calls from New England at No. 118 and No. 133 overall in the fourth round. And then came the choices of Maryland defensive tackle Byron Cowart and right-footed Stanford punter Jake Bailey within four slots of each other in the fifth round.
