If the New England Patriots decision-making in the 2015 NFL Draft seemed a little, off to you, there may be a reason for that.
According to a report, the Patriots and head coach/football czar Bill Belichick had compiled a pre-draft list of just 15-20 players they saw as draftable targets. That's not a big list - especially when you consider the draft is seven rounds long and is comprised of 256 selections out of a talent pool of thousands - but that's exactly what good personnel teams do - they target specific players and do their best to make sure they wind up members of their respecitive franchises.
Only, sometimes this approach can backfire, like it allegedly did for the Pats and Belichick in late April.
"Some of the picks that received the largest amount of questions and were said to be huge reaches in the 2015 NFL Draft came from the New England Patriots. Sources told us that after the Malcom Brown pick, the Patriots ran out of draftable players before their second selection. That is why New England started to take players that weren't necessarily in the round that most teams graded them," reports Charlie Campbell of Walter Football.
This is where that whole list of just 15-20 draftable players thing can kind of come back to bite you.
"Sources say that the Patriots only had 15-20 players they viewed as good fits for their team. Obviously, the defending champions have a veteran roster without a lot of needs, and as a result, they only had a small amount of players whom they felt could truly fill a role on game day. Sources said that after the Patriots selected Brown, the remaining players in their draft pool were all gone by the time the team was set to pick at the end of the second round. As a result, league contacts said that caused head coach Bill Belichick to "wing it" from then on, and he took players that he liked the most."
Fans of any NFL franchise, even one with as much recent and consistent success as New England, never want to hear that their coach was forced to "wing it" when it comes to culling talent for the next generation of Patriots playoff appearances.
If there's any organization that deserves the benefit of the doubt, it's the Patriots and Belichick, but that benefit only goes so far and if the rest of the league is to be believed, the Pats may not see much impact in the short or long-term from their 2015 NFL Draft class.
"That helps to explain New England's second-round pick of Stanford safety Jordan Richards who had graded out as a day-three pick elsewhere. In the third round, the Patriots took another day-three talent in Oklahoma outside linebacker Geneo Grissom. Sources say that fourth-round picks of defensive end Trey Flowers and guard Tre Jackson were better, but the rest of New England's picks could be hard-pressed to make the roster."
