COMMENTARY Five takeaways from the Patriots’ highly regarded draft weekend, during which Bill Belichick seems to have started gearing up his team for another run…
COMMENTARY
Five takeaways from the Patriots’ highly regarded draft weekend, during which Bill Belichick seems to have started gearing up his team for another run at a Super Bowl title on top of potentially picking Tom Brady’s eventual heir…
You aren’t likely alone among Patriots fans if you finished watching the Bruins beat the Blue Jackets in overtime on Thursday night and opted to turn in rather than waiting up for pick No. 32 to come around down in Nashville. And you certainly couldn’t be blamed. After years of trading down and/or taking the best available trench warrior, Belichick has so conditioned New England’s fan base to expect the unsexy that it hardly seemed worth sacrificing slumber just to watch the commissioner douse any built anticipation by announcing a trade had been made before the final pick of the first round. Those same expectations would’ve been forgivable Friday night, too, which began for many with a rightful skepticism about how much exciting the second day of the draft would be despite the Pats holding five picks across rounds two and three.
But then, with that 32nd pick, they selected N’Keal Harry — a big, tough, strong-handed, competitive wide receiver. The next day they followed that by trading up to take Joejuan Williams, a cornerback whose long body is built to take on the types of receivers they’re likely to face this coming season. Then in the early third round they pounced on the chance to take Chase Winovich, a high-motor edge defender better known for rushing the quarterback than responsibly setting the boundary. And a day later they spent a fourth rounder on Jarrett Stidham, a physically gifted, high-upside QB who comes straight from the starting ranks of the SEC.
Now, nobody knows how these picks will pan out. Some of the experts who’ve given the Pats high grades for their choices this weekend were probably the same pundits who praised the Raiders for taking JaMarcus Russell first overall years ago. There are so many variables, it’s impossible for even those paid to fixate on these prospects for months to truly predict with any degree of certainty what type of pros they’ll become, or how exactly they project in a system.
But just based on the approach, this seems to finally be the draft Patriots fans have been waiting for. Not only did Belichick buck his own established trend by taking a wideout in the first round for the first time, but it wasn’t until after he’d drafted three guys who could play spotlighted positions, and play them immediately, that he prioritized reinforcing his roster with depth and value. And when he did look for a long-term project, he did it with a quarterback, satisfying the fan base’s itch to identify the next Jimmy Garoppolo and understand the Tom Brady succession plan.
Again, who knows if any of these guys can play? Or how they’ll fit? And they didn’t address an obvious area of pressing need by taking a tight end. However, in the wake of a Super Bowl championship, with another chance to win three titles in four years forthcoming, and with a quarterback who’ll be 42 years old this summer, it appears the Patriots took to the draft with a plan that reflects the undeniably urgency of that formula, and managed to pull it off while simultaneously fortifying parts of their future.
It’d be tough for fans to ask for anything more exciting than that.
If Harry can live up to Herm Edwards’s comparison and is indeed a Dez Bryant-type for the Patriots, he will command the attention. But until the Pats’ top pick starts to showcase his abilities, the most intriguing and talked-about selection figures to be a guy who in a best-case scenario doesn’t see meaningful action for a few years.
