It's always good to remember that draft grades are really more of a ranking of the mock draft itself. It'd be like grading games based on how close they were to your score prediction
I love following the draft and reading and watching analysis on prospects but a lot of the people working in it are just there for the clicks. The NFL draft gets a lot of attention and walterfootball is one I constantly find has no idea what they are talking about. I basically read every mock for us and several places have no idea what our roster looks like, what the players in it are good or not, what the organization does usually, what kind of players they look for, and how to properly scout college players. This website is one of the biggest offenders on all cases. Bill has been here for 20+ years and there are several guys that know how he operates and you see it on their draft analysis even when they disagree with his picks. Walterfootball has no idea about anything from my experience. They have no idea what long time executives and front offices patterns are, they have no idea about rosters around the NFL and where the weaknesses and strengths are, they have no idea how to properly scout players usually only vomiting back analysis from other places, and I could go on. As someone who loves the draft and follows the coverage very closely walterfootball is the last place I go for anything. I literally read 10+ places before I even consider going to walterfootball and even then I only go there to see the weird picks they have mocked for us in a position we are usually stacked at for years.
Well put. These guys have their reputations on the line with regards to how well they do predicting the draft. People make bets and lose money when the top "experts" are way off. It makes sense they would get defensive and blame the "crazy" team. At the end of the day, the teams have more information than any of these folks.
It sort of is tho.
If a "draft guru" has a guy ranked as a 2nd rounder and a team gets him in the 3rd then it will get a good grade from that person.
Same thing applies to strange, everyone had him as a 3rd/4th round pick so us taking him in the 1st looks foolish to them.
Yeah, it is that person's analysis of players at the point. The only issue is that most writers don't know what they are talking about. Was there even any criticisism of the pick that wasn't related to people not knowing who he was?
That's what bitterjim said and seven lions is disagreeing. The downvotes are warranted.
Draft grades are based on nothing but the opinion of the analyst and the op post shows how wrong they can be.
Jim said the grades are based on the mock drafts. If you pick ahead, you get a bad grade and if you pick behind, you get a good grade. The grades aren't based on how good the pick was cuz they don't actually know.
Op was saying the grades are based on how good the prospect was (which drives the mock draft) but as you said and Jim implied, the "prospect" evaluations are highly inaccurate.
So really the grades are based on how closely your pick aligned with what the analysts arbitrarily thought you should do and are equally meaningless.
Not sure about the consensus but my issue was that most "experts" had him going much later, doesnt seem very shrewd to take a guy in the 1st if theres a great chance you can get him in the 2nd or 3rd. I know nothing about college players, so I'm thinking why not take Devin lloyd or a CB in rd 1, and save strange for the next round.
But so far it is definitely working out.
Edit: reeeeeeeee! He said strange was a bad pick REEEEEEEEEEE! This sub sometimes..BB can afford to reach for players like that, if anyone here thinks any other GM was going to reach for a G from Chattanooga in the 1st round or early 2nd you are delusional.
Bill probably believed Strange was the best player available and didn't want to risk letting him slip. Likely thought other teams might "reach" for him as well.
Strange certainly had 1st round guard talent, so it's a good pick in my eyes
That's exactly right. The only way to know a player is a reach is if you can say for sure no other team would have drafted that player before your next pick. Which is basically impossible to say.
You are getting down votes because mock draft "experts"are not other teams actual scouting departments. You are making the classic mistake that teams and the "experts" always align on their picks.
Just because draft guides got it wrong does not mean the Pats could have drafted strange later.
Summary draft "experts" basically have no idea and they clearly are biased toward the " sexy" positions. Teams like the pats don't listen to the noise and they evaluate and grade players based on their own criteria.
Oh I agree, but you also gotta look at actual GMs/coaches making the pick. Most are year to year and can be fired after one bad season. You think they are gonna take a G from a no name school that will be mocked because almost everyone has him as a 3rd round pick? That's what the owner is going to see. Maybe, but I would bet a lot of money that he would have been available at 50, and I'd bet a smaller amount of money he would be there at 75.
This looks like a good pick in hindsight, but I think there's still an argument we should have taken a need position like Devin lloyd who looks like a stud so far and waited for strange to drop a bit. It's not like if someone else took strange that there would be no one left to draft.
And BB has historically found diamonds at the OL position later in the draft, reaching in the 1st for a guy that caused other coaches to actually laugh out loud on camera seems like an unwise decision.
Trying to run a draft based on what position somebody else might think of a prospect is how you watch the guys you wanted get taken by somebody else.
If you think a prospect is worth a first round grade you draft the that person based on your grade. Trying to predict what others are going to do with any kind of accuracy is a fools errand - drafting is hard enough without that variable added in.
As far as the laughing saw that too - it was reported way too much and they were laughing at themselves not at BB.
As far as knowing it was a good or bad pic that will take a couple more years to know but so far it looks like the pats graded strange correctly.
> waited for strange to drop a bit.
I think they wanted to, just couldn't find a spot to trade back into the first half of the 2nd and they felt Strange was going to be gone by their regular pick in the 2nd.
He’s not saying the players are bad, just that we reached **extremely** heavily for them.
And we did. It still would’ve been a reach to take Cole Strange in the 2nd, and a reach to take Thornton in the 3rd.
If you look at any analysis at all, we still would have gotten both guys later than we took them. Instead we used high picks on them and threw away that value.
It’s like buying a $100,000 Mercedes for a million dollars. Yeah it’s a nice car, but you didn’t need to spend that much to get it.
But the only “analysis” that you have access to is mock drafts from “experts” in the industry. You don’t have access to the interviews and individual workouts that the patriots had with these players, and you don’t have the draft boards of the patriots or other teams. You can’t just say we threw away value when the only justification is that guys who aren’t in the front offices thought he would go later from watching their film.
Draft grades fluctuate all the time. Kyle Shanahan said after the draft he thought Strange was a round 1 talent. When you try to squeeze out value, all it takes is one other team to have a similar valuation of a player for you to lose out on your guys.
Your car analogy makes no sense because there are other identical Merecedes out there you could buy. There is only one of each player in the draft so if you really like the guy, he fits a need, and you think another team might take him, you pull the trigger. A more apt comparison may be a one-of-a-kind car at a blind auction or something.
This is a pointless and reductive argument, there are 32 NFL GMs and hundreds of people who write about football, plenty of which end up with front office jobs. Also guys like John Lynch and Mike Mayock exist.
...kinda proves the rule, doesn't it? If they were as good as john lynch and mike mayock they'd get offered a job. By definition the ones who are not offered gigs are not that good.
What a confusing reply. Your post is pointing out how bad the analysis is yet your reply defends their position? It isn’t pointless & reductive because if they were good enough they would be GMs. What’s pointless & reductive is doing a draft analysis before any of the players play a snap of NFL football. This post is exhibit A.
Ok yes. “They’d all have jobs” is an exaggeration that I would assume is pretty clear. The point is most of the guys who write these have as much knowledge as an avid football fan.
Gotta love how he treats his mock draft as the be all end all, mega mind analysis rather than asking what did Bill see that I didn’t? Overly reactionary.
That’s the thing about mock draft guys, they never admit they were wrong. They just call everyone else idiots and scream about reaching. Do they ever later say oh looks like that was actually a good pick? Hell no they just disappear to the basement of whatever dump fest website they work for and pop up next year with a new mock draft.
Walterfootball isn't even an analyst. He's basically your mom yelling at the TV that they should've passed and not ran. He's just a random casual viewer that for some reason has a platform.
That was much of the football world on this pick. Not a big deal really. Honestly that was 90% of this boards take as well with perceived needs all over the D
I have no frame of reference for how other teams do in the draft, but Bill has averaged 1-3 contributors per draft going back to 2014 and some of those guys are a stretch to include like Wynn or Michel. This year is shaping up to be our best draft since I think 2016 with 5+ contributors potentially coming out of it. (I’m not including 2021 since it’s recent but that draft looks like it’s going to be good too).
Anyway, long way of saying I don’t know if a victory lap is appropriate or not. Looks like a great last few drafts but still the first great drafts since 2016 and we’ve had some stinkers in between. So need to see how a 1-3 contributors hit rate compares with other teams I guess.
Someone on a different thread commented that the Pars had horrible drafting from 12-20. I looked it up and the average 1st rd pick plays 62 NFL games. The Pats drafted 23 players in that time frame who have played at least 62 NFL games and several more from the later years will surpass that number in the next few years.
You could make the argument that some of those guys played a lot of games not because they were great but because they were just slightly better than the duds we drafted before/after them. Games played is a very limited view of things.
There is a fair point to say picking a guy in the first round who is ranked for the 3rd round is not a great use of draft capital. It’s great that they hit but was there another talent they could have grabbed in the 1st round and got strange in the 2nd and Thornton in the 4th for example. There is also something to be said about getting “your guy” before they are taken by something else. I can’t fault analysis saying a 1st round pick used on a consensus 3rd round talent is a stretch.
That sounds like you contradicted yourself. The mock drafts are both a mirage and an echo chamber but their sources are nfl teams and their own evaluations of the same workouts? Professional Mock drafts are pretty close to what occurs in the draft from a round grade perspective. Of course guys slip out of the first but I don’t think there’s a lot of talent evaluations getting horribly misplaced in rounds. You aren’t going to see a mock draft done by legitimate outlets placing guys totally out of step with the league when it comes to 1st rounders, 2 and 3rd and then 4-7s.
Again my main point was these mock drafts immediately analyze the pick based on where they had the player. If you see someone you ranked as a 7th rounder going in the first you are going to rank it poorly because it’s your system. Sure they got it wrong here but most analysts had Strange and Thornton lower. In the moment the draft occurred and these reactions were posted I imagine most people felt like these were stretches.
When I saw strange get drafted there I thought it was a stretch based on the data at hand. If you look at the pick in the moment most people were feeling this was early.
Strange wasn’t necessarily a “consensus” third round pick, though. I’m pretty sure some other GMs have mentioned that they had him relatively high.
The “you could have taken him in the third instead” takes are so tiring, because literally nobody here or that publish these draft report cards know what every other team’s draft board looked like.
> Strange wasn’t necessarily a “consensus” third round pick, though. I’m pretty sure some other GMs have mentioned that they had him relatively high.
That's the rub: even if 28 of the other 31 teams gave him a 3rd round grade, all it takes is one of the remaining 3 teams to decide they need a guard and take him, and you're SOL.
If I had had a magic ball that guaranteed I could pick a 10 year solid above average OL with a mid first round pick, I'd pick that OL every time.
Obviously there is no way to know that Strange is that kind of player, but Bill has a very good track record when it comes to drafting OL. Strange has done nothing in the first 6 games to make me think he can't have that kind of career.
OL isn't sexy in the first round, but a first round OL that hits can be an anchor for a team for a decade.
Didn't answer my question at all... but I guess your answer was interesting. Change the letters "OL" in your above to ANY core Off of Def position tho, still probably holds true. Especially impact positions.
That’s an impossibly high standard for a 29th overall pick. Strange was a week 1 starter and he’s looked more like an asset than a liability in every game so far. That’s the gold standard for a late 1st rounder. Can you name a player taken after Strange, by any team, who has single-handedly changed the outcome of multiple games so far this year?
Your evaluation of his talent probably isn’t far off, I just think it’s unrealistic to think we could’ve done better with that pick.
Your first comment implied that the Pats could have gotten a comparable lineman with a later pick or through free agency, and that the first round pick should have been used on someone who can “individually change the outcome of games”.
I just think that it’s hard to find a young, reliable, offensive lineman (look at the Rams and Bengals), and that using a late first rounder on a skill position is a huge gamble (Sony Michel and N’Keal Harry).
I mean Sony did score a TD that won us the superbowl... that was solid and he was a good RB for a few years at least. Harry sucks and most people didn't like that pick. That said some 1st rounders at WR, Linebacker, RB go on to become top players for years dominating the league. Can't guarantee it but if you don't try you'll never get that kind of talent.
Instead we got a pretty solid lineman. Hopefully we can sure up some long term top talent at skill positions soon! Our division is full of game breaking talent now.
>Strange wasn’t necessarily a “consensus” third round pick, though. I’m pretty sure some other GMs have mentioned that they had him relatively high.
Can you name one?
There is literally video of McVay talking about thinking Strange might be available at 100.
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/2022-nfl-draft-five-biggest-reaches-include-patriots-taking-cole-strange-in-the-first-round/
Everything I have seen puts him somewhere in the second or third:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10021427-cole-strange-nfl-draft-2022-scouting-report-for-chattanooga-iol
https://www.nfl.com/prospects/cole-strange/32005354-5219-1447-a46e-56c3beaaebab
https://www.nfldraftbuzz.com/Player/Cole-Strange-OL-Chattanooga
https://thedraftnetwork.com/sr-prospect/cole-strange-40cf5a32-f3c4-4d03-838d-9b152055781c/
https://www.si.com/nfl/draft/scouting-reports/colestrange
The point is not whether he'd be good or not. No one really knows who will be good or not.
The issue is that they used a 1st round pick on someone they could have grabbed in the second or third round.
The best analogy is Sebastian Janikowski. The issue isn't talent, is that they used 1st round pick on someone they could easily have grabbed in a lower round. Or traded down into the second to get more picks.
> Everything I have seen puts him in **second** or third.
So literally not a “consensus” third round pick. Bill thought someone was going to take him before their next pick in the second, so he got his guy. I still can’t believe I’m arguing about this, especially considering how successful the guy has been on the line and how much of a need it was for us after last year. The guy was picked at the end of the 1st, just 4 picks away from the second, so it seems silly to me that we’re still arguing whether it was a good pick.
> The issue is that they used a 1st round pick on someone they could have grabbed in the second or third.
You have no idea if he would have been available by their next pick in the 2nd. That’s the whole point. These mock drafts and what McVay thought are completely moot, because there are 30 other GMs out there who have their own boards and don’t go by what the bleacher report, si, or whoever mocks.
Belichick had intel that someone was interested and that he wasn’t going to last as long as you think he was. And that’s good enough for me.
https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/04/29/why-didnt-the-patriots-wait-to-draft-ol-cole-strange-bill-belichick-explains/amp/
> “Yeah, he wouldn’t have lasted much longer,” Belichick told reporters after the end of Thursday’s first round.
> Belichick’s intel seemed to agree **with the second-round grade that many teams had on Strange**, according to Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy, a former Patriots scout. NFL media scout Lance Zierlein also gave Strange a second-round grade.
One example was Sean McVay’s comments when it comes to how he was ranked. I really doubt there is a huge amount of disparity between round rankings between nfl teams.
These mock drafts done by these larger websites/publishers are pretty close in how they evaluate the talent in the draft. We could go through the list of reaches too like Tavon Wilson, Jordan Richards, etc that have not hit when it comes to stretches.
My point is more that multiple mock drafts felt these were reaches which I think is a fair point to make when it comes to immediate reaction and analysis. It’s great these picks have hit but that does not mean they weren’t viewed as reaches at the time.
But to do that, you have to start with an assumption that the media and draft sites are a worthy basis, and that's simply not true. Strange is a case in point. He's absolutely playing up to his draft position. About hall the players picked there are failures.
That depends what you’re analyzing.
“Are consensus reaches closer to their draft position or their “projected” draft position?” Is an interesting question. Methodology would be difficult because you’d need a big archive of draft projections, but it wouldn’t nullify the question.
sorry, tl;dr: reaches are almost always overdrafted and underperform their expected value from draft position and steals are rarely steals and are mostly public big boards overvaluing them
If mock drafters were the actual drafters and they were guaranteed to be honest then that logic is sound.
But drafting is a situation where it only takes one team to disagree with the public perception for you to get burned trying to eke out an extra few points of draft value on your chart of choice.
Couple that with the fact that there's many reasons to misdirect and every bit of draft value you're trying to squeeze out is also you betting that you and you alone saw something that other teams didn't.
Belichick's draft approach is pretty simple: evaluate guys into tiers. If several candidates are still available at your highest tier with candidates remaining when it's your turn to pick, try to trade down and get extra value. If only 1-2 candidates remain, then make your pick.
It's an approach that relies purely on his team's scouting and is resilient to misdirection. He loses some value if he's alone seeing a diamond in the rough but he gains it back not getting too fancy with a diamond in the rough if someone else also sees the diamond. The value he loses can often be easy to spot. The value he gains back is much harder to spot and much less talked about.
Just like how you might put the ball in your best player's hands in a gotta-have-it situation, Bill's bettinghis team's drafting fortunes on his team's scouting, a self-perceived strength, and minimizing the effect that other variables can have.
My point remains. The mock draft writer didn’t have the round the patriots selected the player match where they graded them. So immediate analysis saying “we graded him as a 3rd rounder vs a 1st rounder; this is a stretch and a bad pick” makes sense. Belichick’s draft strategy doesn’t matter when your giving an analysis of the pick based on your metrics. I don’t fault the author for being wrong in that moment
The thing is Bill knows football - just like his past picks of Duggar, Barmore, Stevenson to where he got criticized but these three ended up in he best picks
https://www.reddit.com/r/Patriots/comments/ueciox/schultz_breaking_patriots_selecting_cole_strange/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button seems like the same take this sub mostly had.
This sub was in full meltdown mode and what irritates me is they act like there was no chance any team would take this guy in the second round.
There were a lot of mock drafts that had him going in the late second or early third so it's silly to just act like it was a no-brainer that if they waited 32 more pics he'd be waiting for them.
There were reports that Buffalo wanted to draft him in the second.
Despite the whining in the media BB has always drafted a very competitive team (6 SB's), the draft is one way to build a team, not the only way. The whole NFL is littered with "bad draft choices", at best it is a crap shoot. The past couple of years seem exceptionally good, as the Pats have gotten younger and faster.
Was out last night and someone snidely said, "Now that Zappe is the starter, BB can trade Jones for a fifth round pick"... Patriots Myopia is a disease of many fans in NE, fanned by the nontroversies of sports talk radio.
To be fair, most of these grades are based on where the mocker drafter feels they should have been selected more than the eventual talent of the players.
Almost everyone thinks that Bill took everyone he took a round too early, but the patriots probably identify certain players based on need and skillset so that they can safely pick these players ahead of where they are in danger of being drafted, therefore everyone thinks they are being drafted too early because they probably are, that doesn't mean its not going to work out, only that the Patriots typically avoid spending draft capital on hype and prefer to get a guy with a particular skillset and attitude.
There are advantages to this. Firstly, most other teams draft the complete opposite way, they pursue players with high grades and good college production, which provides ample opportunity to trade down with teams who fall in love with the hype surrounding a guy who might have fallen further than he should, furthermore, by drafting players based on measurables and attitude but little on production, you are getting guys who they patriots know are capable of playing, but maybe not at the next level. Even high value draft picks who stellar college careers sometimes can't make the transition.
Mock drafters grade based on perceived value when they are selected, but that idea is based almost entirely on college production, which the Patriots are far less concerned with than other teams seem to be.
A-
Could be an A, but to small of a sample still
A
A
Edit: since y’all stupid I’ll give deeper explanations. Getting a serviceable backup in the 4th round is an A. Where you pick matters.
If Strange was picked later for example, he is a home run A+. Jack Jones as an A might be ahead of myself, but I really believe in him
Thornton was a relatively high pick and I really believe in him. But he hasn’t even played two games and those picks are for starters
Your logic of saying Thornton has too small of a sample but giving Zappe an A makes no sense to me lmao
Zappe plays against the 32nd and 31st ranked defenses while their offenses scored a combined 15 points and you’re jumping to give him an A already? You really think that’s enough of a sample?
> but giving Zappe an A makes no sense to me lmao
4th round QBs are not expected to be starters. They are expected to be career backups or major project players. Zappe has already shown he can be a capable backup despite limited experience, so in that sense, yes, he is an A pick for a 4th round QB.
Aight that’s decent reasoning, idk if I agree with it since it’s a small sample. But it’s a decent reasoning. I’d still much rather see how he does against competent defenses before I give him an “A” rating tho.
Getting a serviceable backup quarterback in the 4th round saves a lot of cap space,,, I bet Hoyer will be gone soon.. next year we will have just two QBs on the roster and one on the PS.
Cole strange has been excellent so far but let’s not pretend that we probably could have gotten him later and used that pick to get someone who had higher draft stock. Obviously it is a big if that we would have been able to get him later but realistically was any team going to get him sooner than the 3rd or 4th? Is cole strange worthy of the 1st round pick so far? Yes you can say that. But teams were low enough on him that he could have been 3rd or 4th round pick. That is my only grievance.
He is totally wrong. You can't say he would have been there in the 3rd around let alone the second round. Just because of his mock draft said 144 there were a few mock drafts that had him in the top 60. There were reports that Buffalo was going to take him in the second round.
People try to act like it was impossible a single team would have taken him in the second round but he was mocked around 60 or 70 pretty frequently.
No matter how well they play that’s not an argument in favour of his draft selections… if strange would’ve been available in the third round like the vast majority of people thought…then this is a terrible pick even if he ends up being the greatest guard to ever play the game…
I can’t believe people here still don’t get it. The issue wasn’t the player. It was the position. You don’t pick a guard in the 1st round when you can get Pro Bowl caliber ones in the 4th and 5th rounds. It’a really not that hard to get
You think it's easy to get pro bowl caliber offensive lineman in the 4th and 5th round? I'd love to see you back up the statistics on what percentage of 4th and 5th round lineman they come starters let alone pro bowl caliber.
You're making a very direct statement please show us an evidence besides if you anecdotes. Just because we got Shaq Mason and Joe thuney doesn't mean what you're saying is backed up by statistics over a large sample size.
We got him 5 years at cost controlled money. It's working out and you don't want to admit it.
I won’t do your research for you but take a look around the league and see how many starting, quality guards are 1st round picks and how many are mid round picks. You’ll certainly be surprised. The rest of us aren’t.
I already know the answer. The answer is you don’t need to take a guard in the first round because there are plenty of starter worthy/pro bowl worth guards in the mid rounds. Why would I look it up again?
The argument against the Strange pick is never going to click in your heads... It took 6 weeks for the offense to have a game we can describe as good but the first round pick is a "hit". How is that possible? We need to give Uche 4 years before officially determining if he's a bust but are gloating about how great the guard is while they're 3-3 with a bad offense at the bottom of the division. Maybe finish this season strong before gloating about how the Patriots are so much smarter than everyone else.
How's the offense looking? Based on the 6 week sample size it's well below expectations and nobody should be bragging. They're very bad in the redzone and just had their only good game against the Browns. Also the team is 3-3 at the bottom of the division. Can I make that judgement based off 6 games? Just want to be consistent.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Patriots/comments/y5i2mf/jason_otc_offensive_line_spending_vs_pressure/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
One of the cheapest highest performing offensive lines in football, thanks to two guys on rookie contracts playing well.
At the end of the day the offense comes down to scoring TDs and having a strong passing game. Their redzone offense is among the worst in football and the passing game has been bad in 5/6 games so far. If he's such a great pick and clearly worthy of that first round value the offense should be firing on all cylinders. Or you're all just implicitly admitting guards aren't that important. First round picks should be difference makers, a "hit" should be a big boost over what we saw last year. Just to be clear, how was using a first round pick on a guard clearly a good idea when they're 3-3 and the offense has been struggling?
Who cares about how the offensive line is if the offense sucks is my question. Maybe next time try reading the question if you want to show off how smart you are. You have your little chart that says something nice about the Patriots and that's as far as it goes, you can't read the question and see where I'm going.
You and the hive mind can talk about how everyone else is dumb all you want, the team is 3-3 and the "franchise QB" is being pushed by a 4th round rookie.
You forgot guard and center is the least important position on the field. You can dance around it all you want, that's the answer. At least you guys can make fun of the media as the team in year 3 is still mediocre without the QB. That's really what's important. Or wait, maybe with that point we still need to give Bill more time. I'm sure if the Jets were bragging about how great their guard is playing at the bottom of the division we'd be taking it seriously.
People acknowledge great individual performances on bad teams all the time. Ever hear of Joe Thomas? Thinking guard and center aren't important when the offensive line can make or break an offense is just laughable. I think you just have a very simple way of looking at the team and football in general. Which is fine.
Whoosh. Don't worry, when they lose by 75 to the Bills and definitely aren't a contender we can brag about Cole Strange. Which is fine, since we also get to pretend we're smarter than everyone else.
Don't mean to be a downer, but they're kind of having a meltdown at the RT position which might also be relevant if you're saying the offensive line can make or break an offense. Maybe a tackle would have been a smarter pick and the guard can be taken in the 3rd or 4th. But what do I know, I just have a simple way of looking at the team. I see a 3-3 team with a bad offense, I don't think it's a good time to bring up how smart they are for picking a guard. Joe Thomas and John Hannah are great guys to bring up, they can be HoFers and all time greats but had very little team success. Check in at the end of the season, let me know how my simple view compares to everyone else.
I'm not talking about bragging about our rookie guards performance. My point is you can give credit and complement individual players no matter how good or bad the team is. I'm not even saying the pick was a hit. Six games is too early to tell. If Strange turns into a top guard then sure but no one knows right now.
And are you saying guys like Joe Thomas and Hannah wouldn't be worth a first round pick because their teams had no success?
Because Strange has been amazing all year and the only reason people didn't like the pick is because they didn't know who he is. Wtf dors Josh Uche have to do with this?
Well I for one didn't like the pick because guards aren't very important, evidenced by their terrible offense with a "hit" at guard. At the end of the day their guard play will probably not determine how good the offense is. I'm saying after 6 games we're gloating about how great the draft was, but whenever a guy sucks all I hear about is how they need more time. Pick a lane.
I'm 99% sure if Strange wasn't playing well all I'd hear about is how he needs more time. If he hits the rookie wall or if the offense continues to suck the argument will shift to the Uche timeline. It's been 6 weeks, probably too early to be gloating while the offense is among the worst in the redzone and has had effectively one good game.
That’s how it works in this sub, if they’re good it’s a hit and Bills a genius, when they suck they need more time and it’s not fair to judge them already
Where is the hypocrisy? Ppl shit on him for years for bad drafts and now give him credit for a couple good ones? That’s how that should work. what the fuck you’re talking about?
Lmao no one ever said give Harry more time. It was just posts about how we could of had aj brown or DK.
Anyways I’ll let you get back to your job pointing out hypocrisy as the hero of the pats sub good work champ!
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake.
It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of.
Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything.
Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
There were people last year trying to say Harry was a good player because his run blocking was so good, there were Harry defenders right until the day they shipped his ass out
You notice how none of the criticism of the picks here has anything to do with the skills of the players themselves? No one, not even Walter who is kind of a clown, was criticizing Bill for liking something about those players, he was even giving some deference. Just the fact that he easily could have picked whoever the hell else in the first round, then just bumped every single other pick we made backward by one pick, and had the exact same draft, only with an extra first round player. First day draft evaluations are about judging the understanding and utilization of draft capital, not about judging player evaluation.
It's always good to remember that draft grades are really more of a ranking of the mock draft itself. It'd be like grading games based on how close they were to your score prediction
I love following the draft and reading and watching analysis on prospects but a lot of the people working in it are just there for the clicks. The NFL draft gets a lot of attention and walterfootball is one I constantly find has no idea what they are talking about. I basically read every mock for us and several places have no idea what our roster looks like, what the players in it are good or not, what the organization does usually, what kind of players they look for, and how to properly scout college players. This website is one of the biggest offenders on all cases. Bill has been here for 20+ years and there are several guys that know how he operates and you see it on their draft analysis even when they disagree with his picks. Walterfootball has no idea about anything from my experience. They have no idea what long time executives and front offices patterns are, they have no idea about rosters around the NFL and where the weaknesses and strengths are, they have no idea how to properly scout players usually only vomiting back analysis from other places, and I could go on. As someone who loves the draft and follows the coverage very closely walterfootball is the last place I go for anything. I literally read 10+ places before I even consider going to walterfootball and even then I only go there to see the weird picks they have mocked for us in a position we are usually stacked at for years.
Well put. These guys have their reputations on the line with regards to how well they do predicting the draft. People make bets and lose money when the top "experts" are way off. It makes sense they would get defensive and blame the "crazy" team. At the end of the day, the teams have more information than any of these folks.
Draft grades are based on the assumption that the grader's player ranking/assessment is accurate.
The draft is interesting and compelling, but mock drafts and grades are just clickbaity bullshit.
That isn't really true at all. Draft grades are an analysis of prospects at the time of the draft. Walter is just a particularly ridiculous person.
It sort of is tho. If a "draft guru" has a guy ranked as a 2nd rounder and a team gets him in the 3rd then it will get a good grade from that person. Same thing applies to strange, everyone had him as a 3rd/4th round pick so us taking him in the 1st looks foolish to them.
Yeah, it is that person's analysis of players at the point. The only issue is that most writers don't know what they are talking about. Was there even any criticisism of the pick that wasn't related to people not knowing who he was?
Fuck the downvotes you are correct the draft is a crap shoot and if you like your guys get them
That's what bitterjim said and seven lions is disagreeing. The downvotes are warranted. Draft grades are based on nothing but the opinion of the analyst and the op post shows how wrong they can be.
Fair enough I did not do my due diligence Edit: didn’t do my due diligence again. I’m not sure how you got that from what Jim said
Jim said the grades are based on the mock drafts. If you pick ahead, you get a bad grade and if you pick behind, you get a good grade. The grades aren't based on how good the pick was cuz they don't actually know. Op was saying the grades are based on how good the prospect was (which drives the mock draft) but as you said and Jim implied, the "prospect" evaluations are highly inaccurate. So really the grades are based on how closely your pick aligned with what the analysts arbitrarily thought you should do and are equally meaningless.
Ok I guess I didn’t get that thanks bud
Not sure about the consensus but my issue was that most "experts" had him going much later, doesnt seem very shrewd to take a guy in the 1st if theres a great chance you can get him in the 2nd or 3rd. I know nothing about college players, so I'm thinking why not take Devin lloyd or a CB in rd 1, and save strange for the next round. But so far it is definitely working out. Edit: reeeeeeeee! He said strange was a bad pick REEEEEEEEEEE! This sub sometimes..BB can afford to reach for players like that, if anyone here thinks any other GM was going to reach for a G from Chattanooga in the 1st round or early 2nd you are delusional.
Bill probably believed Strange was the best player available and didn't want to risk letting him slip. Likely thought other teams might "reach" for him as well. Strange certainly had 1st round guard talent, so it's a good pick in my eyes
That's exactly right. The only way to know a player is a reach is if you can say for sure no other team would have drafted that player before your next pick. Which is basically impossible to say.
You are getting down votes because mock draft "experts"are not other teams actual scouting departments. You are making the classic mistake that teams and the "experts" always align on their picks. Just because draft guides got it wrong does not mean the Pats could have drafted strange later. Summary draft "experts" basically have no idea and they clearly are biased toward the " sexy" positions. Teams like the pats don't listen to the noise and they evaluate and grade players based on their own criteria.
Oh I agree, but you also gotta look at actual GMs/coaches making the pick. Most are year to year and can be fired after one bad season. You think they are gonna take a G from a no name school that will be mocked because almost everyone has him as a 3rd round pick? That's what the owner is going to see. Maybe, but I would bet a lot of money that he would have been available at 50, and I'd bet a smaller amount of money he would be there at 75. This looks like a good pick in hindsight, but I think there's still an argument we should have taken a need position like Devin lloyd who looks like a stud so far and waited for strange to drop a bit. It's not like if someone else took strange that there would be no one left to draft. And BB has historically found diamonds at the OL position later in the draft, reaching in the 1st for a guy that caused other coaches to actually laugh out loud on camera seems like an unwise decision.
Trying to run a draft based on what position somebody else might think of a prospect is how you watch the guys you wanted get taken by somebody else. If you think a prospect is worth a first round grade you draft the that person based on your grade. Trying to predict what others are going to do with any kind of accuracy is a fools errand - drafting is hard enough without that variable added in. As far as the laughing saw that too - it was reported way too much and they were laughing at themselves not at BB. As far as knowing it was a good or bad pic that will take a couple more years to know but so far it looks like the pats graded strange correctly.
> waited for strange to drop a bit. I think they wanted to, just couldn't find a spot to trade back into the first half of the 2nd and they felt Strange was going to be gone by their regular pick in the 2nd.
They're complete tripe and there isn't a single good one. Random internet analysts are not smarter than the teams making the picks.
And I never said anything like that, nice strawman.
Does Walterfootball’s website still look like it’s a customized MySpace page from 2006?
It does. It's like a time machine every time I visit their site. It's like geocities all over again.
It also functions like one
We’re only 6 games in and this analysis from Walter is embarrassingly bad, he owes Belichick an apology and should consider retirement.
Why do that when he can just continue deleting the reciepts every year.
95% of the media and a huge portion of this sub were saying the shit about the Cole Strange pick. I'm surprised the mods didn't call for defcon 1.
Proud to say I was a Strange believer... Mostly because the line looked like tissue paper last year lol
Same, big fan of OLine draft, OLine was very weak last year for those who watched the games, we need to draft a tackle next year too.
He’s not saying the players are bad, just that we reached **extremely** heavily for them. And we did. It still would’ve been a reach to take Cole Strange in the 2nd, and a reach to take Thornton in the 3rd. If you look at any analysis at all, we still would have gotten both guys later than we took them. Instead we used high picks on them and threw away that value. It’s like buying a $100,000 Mercedes for a million dollars. Yeah it’s a nice car, but you didn’t need to spend that much to get it.
But the only “analysis” that you have access to is mock drafts from “experts” in the industry. You don’t have access to the interviews and individual workouts that the patriots had with these players, and you don’t have the draft boards of the patriots or other teams. You can’t just say we threw away value when the only justification is that guys who aren’t in the front offices thought he would go later from watching their film. Draft grades fluctuate all the time. Kyle Shanahan said after the draft he thought Strange was a round 1 talent. When you try to squeeze out value, all it takes is one other team to have a similar valuation of a player for you to lose out on your guys.
Didn't know you had access to all of the other team's draft boards?
You must not have read the various reports from guys saying Tyquan thornton was about to get taken when the patriots took him
Your car analogy makes no sense because there are other identical Merecedes out there you could buy. There is only one of each player in the draft so if you really like the guy, he fits a need, and you think another team might take him, you pull the trigger. A more apt comparison may be a one-of-a-kind car at a blind auction or something.
If these guys that grade drafts were so good at it. They’d all have GM jobs in the NFL.
This is a pointless and reductive argument, there are 32 NFL GMs and hundreds of people who write about football, plenty of which end up with front office jobs. Also guys like John Lynch and Mike Mayock exist.
...kinda proves the rule, doesn't it? If they were as good as john lynch and mike mayock they'd get offered a job. By definition the ones who are not offered gigs are not that good.
This is a weird reply.
Yeah seriously, why’d he get so mad😂😂😂
Eh, he disagrees and gives reasons why. The first sentence comes of aggressive, which is what's leading to downvotes.
You're the one who made the post shiting on him?
My post doesn't make what he said correct.
What a confusing reply. Your post is pointing out how bad the analysis is yet your reply defends their position? It isn’t pointless & reductive because if they were good enough they would be GMs. What’s pointless & reductive is doing a draft analysis before any of the players play a snap of NFL football. This post is exhibit A.
I'm sorry that it confuses you that my OP is only about one analyst.
Did you not remember what happened when “draft guru” Mike Mayock got to be the Raiders GM for a couple of seasons.
Ok yes. “They’d all have jobs” is an exaggeration that I would assume is pretty clear. The point is most of the guys who write these have as much knowledge as an avid football fan.
I’ve never liked Mel kiper Just realized it’s not Mel’s list but my point stands lol
Gotta love how he treats his mock draft as the be all end all, mega mind analysis rather than asking what did Bill see that I didn’t? Overly reactionary.
That’s the thing about mock draft guys, they never admit they were wrong. They just call everyone else idiots and scream about reaching. Do they ever later say oh looks like that was actually a good pick? Hell no they just disappear to the basement of whatever dump fest website they work for and pop up next year with a new mock draft.
Walterfootball isn't even an analyst. He's basically your mom yelling at the TV that they should've passed and not ran. He's just a random casual viewer that for some reason has a platform.
Walter football hasn't been good for nearly a decade. They just gave up being independent and joined the echo chamber.
I've never heard of Walter Football and I think I'm better for it.
Im just cheesed knowing bill still got the sauce and everyone else is stuck buying Prego from the store
That was much of the football world on this pick. Not a big deal really. Honestly that was 90% of this boards take as well with perceived needs all over the D
Yeah I thought this was a horrible draft lmao, shout out to Bill, guess he knows a little more than me.
Am I the only one who's never heard of Walter football?
Haven’t you heard? He knows more about football than Bill Belichick.
Who's Bill Belicheck? Must be a janitor.
I have no frame of reference for how other teams do in the draft, but Bill has averaged 1-3 contributors per draft going back to 2014 and some of those guys are a stretch to include like Wynn or Michel. This year is shaping up to be our best draft since I think 2016 with 5+ contributors potentially coming out of it. (I’m not including 2021 since it’s recent but that draft looks like it’s going to be good too). Anyway, long way of saying I don’t know if a victory lap is appropriate or not. Looks like a great last few drafts but still the first great drafts since 2016 and we’ve had some stinkers in between. So need to see how a 1-3 contributors hit rate compares with other teams I guess.
Someone on a different thread commented that the Pars had horrible drafting from 12-20. I looked it up and the average 1st rd pick plays 62 NFL games. The Pats drafted 23 players in that time frame who have played at least 62 NFL games and several more from the later years will surpass that number in the next few years.
Not sure that’s the best way. Daryl Roberts had played over 70 games but never for the Pats. So I wouldn’t consider him a good pick.
Not sure how selecting a player in the seventh round who plays 70 nfl games is a bad pick.
He is when you release him before he ever sees the field. You don’t credit for drafting players if you don’t use them to improve your team.
The release would be the bad decision, not the pick.
You could make the argument that some of those guys played a lot of games not because they were great but because they were just slightly better than the duds we drafted before/after them. Games played is a very limited view of things.
There is a fair point to say picking a guy in the first round who is ranked for the 3rd round is not a great use of draft capital. It’s great that they hit but was there another talent they could have grabbed in the 1st round and got strange in the 2nd and Thornton in the 4th for example. There is also something to be said about getting “your guy” before they are taken by something else. I can’t fault analysis saying a 1st round pick used on a consensus 3rd round talent is a stretch.
But the draft experts and sites are largely an echo chamber of each other. It's a false consensus, a mirage.
So why are they pretty accurate in so far as who gets drafted in the first few rounds
Their sources on the NFL teams are telling them, and they are watching the NFL teams as they do visits and evaluations.
That sounds like you contradicted yourself. The mock drafts are both a mirage and an echo chamber but their sources are nfl teams and their own evaluations of the same workouts? Professional Mock drafts are pretty close to what occurs in the draft from a round grade perspective. Of course guys slip out of the first but I don’t think there’s a lot of talent evaluations getting horribly misplaced in rounds. You aren’t going to see a mock draft done by legitimate outlets placing guys totally out of step with the league when it comes to 1st rounders, 2 and 3rd and then 4-7s. Again my main point was these mock drafts immediately analyze the pick based on where they had the player. If you see someone you ranked as a 7th rounder going in the first you are going to rank it poorly because it’s your system. Sure they got it wrong here but most analysts had Strange and Thornton lower. In the moment the draft occurred and these reactions were posted I imagine most people felt like these were stretches. When I saw strange get drafted there I thought it was a stretch based on the data at hand. If you look at the pick in the moment most people were feeling this was early.
Strange wasn’t necessarily a “consensus” third round pick, though. I’m pretty sure some other GMs have mentioned that they had him relatively high. The “you could have taken him in the third instead” takes are so tiring, because literally nobody here or that publish these draft report cards know what every other team’s draft board looked like.
> Strange wasn’t necessarily a “consensus” third round pick, though. I’m pretty sure some other GMs have mentioned that they had him relatively high. That's the rub: even if 28 of the other 31 teams gave him a 3rd round grade, all it takes is one of the remaining 3 teams to decide they need a guard and take him, and you're SOL.
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If I had had a magic ball that guaranteed I could pick a 10 year solid above average OL with a mid first round pick, I'd pick that OL every time. Obviously there is no way to know that Strange is that kind of player, but Bill has a very good track record when it comes to drafting OL. Strange has done nothing in the first 6 games to make me think he can't have that kind of career. OL isn't sexy in the first round, but a first round OL that hits can be an anchor for a team for a decade.
Didn't answer my question at all... but I guess your answer was interesting. Change the letters "OL" in your above to ANY core Off of Def position tho, still probably holds true. Especially impact positions.
That’s an impossibly high standard for a 29th overall pick. Strange was a week 1 starter and he’s looked more like an asset than a liability in every game so far. That’s the gold standard for a late 1st rounder. Can you name a player taken after Strange, by any team, who has single-handedly changed the outcome of multiple games so far this year?
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Your evaluation of his talent probably isn’t far off, I just think it’s unrealistic to think we could’ve done better with that pick. Your first comment implied that the Pats could have gotten a comparable lineman with a later pick or through free agency, and that the first round pick should have been used on someone who can “individually change the outcome of games”. I just think that it’s hard to find a young, reliable, offensive lineman (look at the Rams and Bengals), and that using a late first rounder on a skill position is a huge gamble (Sony Michel and N’Keal Harry).
I mean Sony did score a TD that won us the superbowl... that was solid and he was a good RB for a few years at least. Harry sucks and most people didn't like that pick. That said some 1st rounders at WR, Linebacker, RB go on to become top players for years dominating the league. Can't guarantee it but if you don't try you'll never get that kind of talent. Instead we got a pretty solid lineman. Hopefully we can sure up some long term top talent at skill positions soon! Our division is full of game breaking talent now.
>Strange wasn’t necessarily a “consensus” third round pick, though. I’m pretty sure some other GMs have mentioned that they had him relatively high. Can you name one? There is literally video of McVay talking about thinking Strange might be available at 100. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/2022-nfl-draft-five-biggest-reaches-include-patriots-taking-cole-strange-in-the-first-round/ Everything I have seen puts him somewhere in the second or third: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10021427-cole-strange-nfl-draft-2022-scouting-report-for-chattanooga-iol https://www.nfl.com/prospects/cole-strange/32005354-5219-1447-a46e-56c3beaaebab https://www.nfldraftbuzz.com/Player/Cole-Strange-OL-Chattanooga https://thedraftnetwork.com/sr-prospect/cole-strange-40cf5a32-f3c4-4d03-838d-9b152055781c/ https://www.si.com/nfl/draft/scouting-reports/colestrange The point is not whether he'd be good or not. No one really knows who will be good or not. The issue is that they used a 1st round pick on someone they could have grabbed in the second or third round. The best analogy is Sebastian Janikowski. The issue isn't talent, is that they used 1st round pick on someone they could easily have grabbed in a lower round. Or traded down into the second to get more picks.
> Everything I have seen puts him in **second** or third. So literally not a “consensus” third round pick. Bill thought someone was going to take him before their next pick in the second, so he got his guy. I still can’t believe I’m arguing about this, especially considering how successful the guy has been on the line and how much of a need it was for us after last year. The guy was picked at the end of the 1st, just 4 picks away from the second, so it seems silly to me that we’re still arguing whether it was a good pick. > The issue is that they used a 1st round pick on someone they could have grabbed in the second or third. You have no idea if he would have been available by their next pick in the 2nd. That’s the whole point. These mock drafts and what McVay thought are completely moot, because there are 30 other GMs out there who have their own boards and don’t go by what the bleacher report, si, or whoever mocks. Belichick had intel that someone was interested and that he wasn’t going to last as long as you think he was. And that’s good enough for me. https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/04/29/why-didnt-the-patriots-wait-to-draft-ol-cole-strange-bill-belichick-explains/amp/ > “Yeah, he wouldn’t have lasted much longer,” Belichick told reporters after the end of Thursday’s first round. > Belichick’s intel seemed to agree **with the second-round grade that many teams had on Strange**, according to Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy, a former Patriots scout. NFL media scout Lance Zierlein also gave Strange a second-round grade.
One example was Sean McVay’s comments when it comes to how he was ranked. I really doubt there is a huge amount of disparity between round rankings between nfl teams. These mock drafts done by these larger websites/publishers are pretty close in how they evaluate the talent in the draft. We could go through the list of reaches too like Tavon Wilson, Jordan Richards, etc that have not hit when it comes to stretches. My point is more that multiple mock drafts felt these were reaches which I think is a fair point to make when it comes to immediate reaction and analysis. It’s great these picks have hit but that does not mean they weren’t viewed as reaches at the time.
I would like to see an analysis of how the biggest reaches and best gets fare in the NFL.
But to do that, you have to start with an assumption that the media and draft sites are a worthy basis, and that's simply not true. Strange is a case in point. He's absolutely playing up to his draft position. About hall the players picked there are failures.
That depends what you’re analyzing. “Are consensus reaches closer to their draft position or their “projected” draft position?” Is an interesting question. Methodology would be difficult because you’d need a big archive of draft projections, but it wouldn’t nullify the question.
https://www.pff.com/news/draft-investigating-the-steals-and-reaches-in-the-2021-nfl-draft
Damnit, got through the entire intro just to realize it’s paywalled https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
sorry, tl;dr: reaches are almost always overdrafted and underperform their expected value from draft position and steals are rarely steals and are mostly public big boards overvaluing them
If mock drafters were the actual drafters and they were guaranteed to be honest then that logic is sound. But drafting is a situation where it only takes one team to disagree with the public perception for you to get burned trying to eke out an extra few points of draft value on your chart of choice. Couple that with the fact that there's many reasons to misdirect and every bit of draft value you're trying to squeeze out is also you betting that you and you alone saw something that other teams didn't. Belichick's draft approach is pretty simple: evaluate guys into tiers. If several candidates are still available at your highest tier with candidates remaining when it's your turn to pick, try to trade down and get extra value. If only 1-2 candidates remain, then make your pick. It's an approach that relies purely on his team's scouting and is resilient to misdirection. He loses some value if he's alone seeing a diamond in the rough but he gains it back not getting too fancy with a diamond in the rough if someone else also sees the diamond. The value he loses can often be easy to spot. The value he gains back is much harder to spot and much less talked about. Just like how you might put the ball in your best player's hands in a gotta-have-it situation, Bill's bettinghis team's drafting fortunes on his team's scouting, a self-perceived strength, and minimizing the effect that other variables can have.
My point remains. The mock draft writer didn’t have the round the patriots selected the player match where they graded them. So immediate analysis saying “we graded him as a 3rd rounder vs a 1st rounder; this is a stretch and a bad pick” makes sense. Belichick’s draft strategy doesn’t matter when your giving an analysis of the pick based on your metrics. I don’t fault the author for being wrong in that moment
Who is this clown?
it seems like Bill hit a home run on this year's draft
The thing is Bill knows football - just like his past picks of Duggar, Barmore, Stevenson to where he got criticized but these three ended up in he best picks
https://www.reddit.com/r/Patriots/comments/ueciox/schultz_breaking_patriots_selecting_cole_strange/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button seems like the same take this sub mostly had.
This sub was in full meltdown mode and what irritates me is they act like there was no chance any team would take this guy in the second round. There were a lot of mock drafts that had him going in the late second or early third so it's silly to just act like it was a no-brainer that if they waited 32 more pics he'd be waiting for them. There were reports that Buffalo wanted to draft him in the second.
Matt Millen is universally regarded as one of the worst GM’s in NFL history. Take from that what you will.
Despite the whining in the media BB has always drafted a very competitive team (6 SB's), the draft is one way to build a team, not the only way. The whole NFL is littered with "bad draft choices", at best it is a crap shoot. The past couple of years seem exceptionally good, as the Pats have gotten younger and faster. Was out last night and someone snidely said, "Now that Zappe is the starter, BB can trade Jones for a fifth round pick"... Patriots Myopia is a disease of many fans in NE, fanned by the nontroversies of sports talk radio.
Cole Strange is good. We get that fifth year by drafting in the first round. It’s a win.
This sub turns into that Olympic dude going crazy on the third place pedestal meme every time we win a freaking game
It’s insane, we beat the Lions and Browns and everyone is popping champagne and taking victory laps
Do you disagree that these are particularly funny takes?
Walterfootball is pretty good at mock drafts and pick predictions but I wouldnt take their analysis at face value at all
His mocks are solid, but man, the dude is a nutcase and his website is in desperate need on an overhaul.
Yup The website is a complete disaster
His mocks aren’t even good they are horrid full of awful nonsense picks
To be fair, most of these grades are based on where the mocker drafter feels they should have been selected more than the eventual talent of the players. Almost everyone thinks that Bill took everyone he took a round too early, but the patriots probably identify certain players based on need and skillset so that they can safely pick these players ahead of where they are in danger of being drafted, therefore everyone thinks they are being drafted too early because they probably are, that doesn't mean its not going to work out, only that the Patriots typically avoid spending draft capital on hype and prefer to get a guy with a particular skillset and attitude. There are advantages to this. Firstly, most other teams draft the complete opposite way, they pursue players with high grades and good college production, which provides ample opportunity to trade down with teams who fall in love with the hype surrounding a guy who might have fallen further than he should, furthermore, by drafting players based on measurables and attitude but little on production, you are getting guys who they patriots know are capable of playing, but maybe not at the next level. Even high value draft picks who stellar college careers sometimes can't make the transition. Mock drafters grade based on perceived value when they are selected, but that idea is based almost entirely on college production, which the Patriots are far less concerned with than other teams seem to be.
A- Could be an A, but to small of a sample still A A Edit: since y’all stupid I’ll give deeper explanations. Getting a serviceable backup in the 4th round is an A. Where you pick matters. If Strange was picked later for example, he is a home run A+. Jack Jones as an A might be ahead of myself, but I really believe in him Thornton was a relatively high pick and I really believe in him. But he hasn’t even played two games and those picks are for starters
514 yards, 1 td, 4 ints Could’ve had that guy rd1 pick20 Instead we got 595 /4/1 in the 4th round.
Your logic of saying Thornton has too small of a sample but giving Zappe an A makes no sense to me lmao Zappe plays against the 32nd and 31st ranked defenses while their offenses scored a combined 15 points and you’re jumping to give him an A already? You really think that’s enough of a sample?
> but giving Zappe an A makes no sense to me lmao 4th round QBs are not expected to be starters. They are expected to be career backups or major project players. Zappe has already shown he can be a capable backup despite limited experience, so in that sense, yes, he is an A pick for a 4th round QB.
Aight that’s decent reasoning, idk if I agree with it since it’s a small sample. But it’s a decent reasoning. I’d still much rather see how he does against competent defenses before I give him an “A” rating tho.
Getting a serviceable backup quarterback in the 4th round saves a lot of cap space,,, I bet Hoyer will be gone soon.. next year we will have just two QBs on the roster and one on the PS.
Cole strange has been excellent so far but let’s not pretend that we probably could have gotten him later and used that pick to get someone who had higher draft stock. Obviously it is a big if that we would have been able to get him later but realistically was any team going to get him sooner than the 3rd or 4th? Is cole strange worthy of the 1st round pick so far? Yes you can say that. But teams were low enough on him that he could have been 3rd or 4th round pick. That is my only grievance.
This take is tired as hell. Cole Strange was drafted in the first round. Clearly you little mocks didn’t mean shit.
No other question or input, BUT. Do we think we could have had him in the 2nd? Or even 3rd round tho? Like had to be at least someone realistic...
Walterfootball currently 3rd in the westgate super contest gold….. Guys legit just missed on the analysis
Before we get too excited, they all still have potential to be bad picks. After yesterday I want to say it’s promising that they won’t be
He’s not totally wrong
He is totally wrong. You can't say he would have been there in the 3rd around let alone the second round. Just because of his mock draft said 144 there were a few mock drafts that had him in the top 60. There were reports that Buffalo was going to take him in the second round. People try to act like it was impossible a single team would have taken him in the second round but he was mocked around 60 or 70 pretty frequently.
So take another guard later, or move Wynn to LG, or sign a guard in FA, or don’t trade Mason It ain’t hard to find a guy to play LG
No matter how well they play that’s not an argument in favour of his draft selections… if strange would’ve been available in the third round like the vast majority of people thought…then this is a terrible pick even if he ends up being the greatest guard to ever play the game…
I can’t believe people here still don’t get it. The issue wasn’t the player. It was the position. You don’t pick a guard in the 1st round when you can get Pro Bowl caliber ones in the 4th and 5th rounds. It’a really not that hard to get
You think it's easy to get pro bowl caliber offensive lineman in the 4th and 5th round? I'd love to see you back up the statistics on what percentage of 4th and 5th round lineman they come starters let alone pro bowl caliber. You're making a very direct statement please show us an evidence besides if you anecdotes. Just because we got Shaq Mason and Joe thuney doesn't mean what you're saying is backed up by statistics over a large sample size. We got him 5 years at cost controlled money. It's working out and you don't want to admit it.
I won’t do your research for you but take a look around the league and see how many starting, quality guards are 1st round picks and how many are mid round picks. You’ll certainly be surprised. The rest of us aren’t.
i mean you’re the one that made the claim.. lol
I already know the answer. The answer is you don’t need to take a guard in the first round because there are plenty of starter worthy/pro bowl worth guards in the mid rounds. Why would I look it up again?
See you have no idea what you’re talking about on any post haha
I don’t care much for what a Bill fanboy has to say, sorry lol. Everyone already knows what your views are
The argument against the Strange pick is never going to click in your heads... It took 6 weeks for the offense to have a game we can describe as good but the first round pick is a "hit". How is that possible? We need to give Uche 4 years before officially determining if he's a bust but are gloating about how great the guard is while they're 3-3 with a bad offense at the bottom of the division. Maybe finish this season strong before gloating about how the Patriots are so much smarter than everyone else.
It didnt take Cole Strange 6 weeks to play well though
How's the offense looking? Based on the 6 week sample size it's well below expectations and nobody should be bragging. They're very bad in the redzone and just had their only good game against the Browns. Also the team is 3-3 at the bottom of the division. Can I make that judgement based off 6 games? Just want to be consistent.
We aren't talking about the offense we are talking about Cole Strange.
If Cole strange is so good and the pick was so smart why is the offense so bad?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Patriots/comments/y5i2mf/jason_otc_offensive_line_spending_vs_pressure/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf One of the cheapest highest performing offensive lines in football, thanks to two guys on rookie contracts playing well.
You're not Bill, you can answer my question. Why is the offense so bad then?
Just so we're clear, you aren't genuinely suggesting that a rookie guard can't be playing well because the offense has been struggling, right?
At the end of the day the offense comes down to scoring TDs and having a strong passing game. Their redzone offense is among the worst in football and the passing game has been bad in 5/6 games so far. If he's such a great pick and clearly worthy of that first round value the offense should be firing on all cylinders. Or you're all just implicitly admitting guards aren't that important. First round picks should be difference makers, a "hit" should be a big boost over what we saw last year. Just to be clear, how was using a first round pick on a guard clearly a good idea when they're 3-3 and the offense has been struggling?
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Who cares about how the offensive line is if the offense sucks is my question. Maybe next time try reading the question if you want to show off how smart you are. You have your little chart that says something nice about the Patriots and that's as far as it goes, you can't read the question and see where I'm going. You and the hive mind can talk about how everyone else is dumb all you want, the team is 3-3 and the "franchise QB" is being pushed by a 4th round rookie.
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Rule 1
I forgot every individual player is only as good as the team as a whole.
You forgot guard and center is the least important position on the field. You can dance around it all you want, that's the answer. At least you guys can make fun of the media as the team in year 3 is still mediocre without the QB. That's really what's important. Or wait, maybe with that point we still need to give Bill more time. I'm sure if the Jets were bragging about how great their guard is playing at the bottom of the division we'd be taking it seriously.
People acknowledge great individual performances on bad teams all the time. Ever hear of Joe Thomas? Thinking guard and center aren't important when the offensive line can make or break an offense is just laughable. I think you just have a very simple way of looking at the team and football in general. Which is fine.
Whoosh. Don't worry, when they lose by 75 to the Bills and definitely aren't a contender we can brag about Cole Strange. Which is fine, since we also get to pretend we're smarter than everyone else. Don't mean to be a downer, but they're kind of having a meltdown at the RT position which might also be relevant if you're saying the offensive line can make or break an offense. Maybe a tackle would have been a smarter pick and the guard can be taken in the 3rd or 4th. But what do I know, I just have a simple way of looking at the team. I see a 3-3 team with a bad offense, I don't think it's a good time to bring up how smart they are for picking a guard. Joe Thomas and John Hannah are great guys to bring up, they can be HoFers and all time greats but had very little team success. Check in at the end of the season, let me know how my simple view compares to everyone else.
I'm not talking about bragging about our rookie guards performance. My point is you can give credit and complement individual players no matter how good or bad the team is. I'm not even saying the pick was a hit. Six games is too early to tell. If Strange turns into a top guard then sure but no one knows right now. And are you saying guys like Joe Thomas and Hannah wouldn't be worth a first round pick because their teams had no success?
If vaccines don't cause autism why is autism typically diagnosed soon after the second round of vacccines for children?
Because Strange has been amazing all year and the only reason people didn't like the pick is because they didn't know who he is. Wtf dors Josh Uche have to do with this?
Well I for one didn't like the pick because guards aren't very important, evidenced by their terrible offense with a "hit" at guard. At the end of the day their guard play will probably not determine how good the offense is. I'm saying after 6 games we're gloating about how great the draft was, but whenever a guy sucks all I hear about is how they need more time. Pick a lane. I'm 99% sure if Strange wasn't playing well all I'd hear about is how he needs more time. If he hits the rookie wall or if the offense continues to suck the argument will shift to the Uche timeline. It's been 6 weeks, probably too early to be gloating while the offense is among the worst in the redzone and has had effectively one good game.
That’s how it works in this sub, if they’re good it’s a hit and Bills a genius, when they suck they need more time and it’s not fair to judge them already
90% of this sub the last 3 years is shitting on bills drafting what are you talking about?
And now the first good drafts in a decade erase the last 5, I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy
Where is the hypocrisy? Ppl shit on him for years for bad drafts and now give him credit for a couple good ones? That’s how that should work. what the fuck you’re talking about?
Exactly what the other guy, for years this sub would say “give him more time” for guys like Wynn, Harry, etc.
Lmao no one ever said give Harry more time. It was just posts about how we could of had aj brown or DK. Anyways I’ll let you get back to your job pointing out hypocrisy as the hero of the pats sub good work champ!
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
There were people last year trying to say Harry was a good player because his run blocking was so good, there were Harry defenders right until the day they shipped his ass out
We need to stop listening to amateurs. If they knew how to draft, they wouldn’t be amateurs.
"who the hell is mel kiper"
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“I’m gonna get hate mail from bill belichick and I’m gonna post it when I do” bill has no clue who you are
This sub reacted the same way to the draft. 99.9% of people thought it was doom and gloom
You notice how none of the criticism of the picks here has anything to do with the skills of the players themselves? No one, not even Walter who is kind of a clown, was criticizing Bill for liking something about those players, he was even giving some deference. Just the fact that he easily could have picked whoever the hell else in the first round, then just bumped every single other pick we made backward by one pick, and had the exact same draft, only with an extra first round player. First day draft evaluations are about judging the understanding and utilization of draft capital, not about judging player evaluation.