Enlightening. Informative. Entertaining. Engaging.

Those are basically all the things many would hope that New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick would be. But to be honest, there didn’t seem to be a lot of that Friday morning in his 8:30 a.m.pre-draft press conference. Breakfast With Bill appeared to be dry toast with water.

Now, think about this: If you’re a Patriots fan, that’s pretty much how you would want it, to be honest. Belichick is paid to win football games and Super Bowls, not tip his draft hand. Whether he’s engaging or entertaining matters little – often it’s just as entertaining in a dark humor sort of way when he isn’t.

But if Belichick was informative or enlightening on Friday, you and Patriots owner Robert Kraft should be concerned.

NFL coaches/general managers should certainly never, ever tip their hand before the draft.

Sure, you could read between the lines, but basically the Patriots and Belichick will do whatever they want, with a lot of options to be active – especially with the two first and two second round picks they have. That’s some high draft capital for a team that hasn’t really had a legitimate first rounder in the last couple of years.

“This year is a little bit different from that,” Belichick said. “But we really need to know the draft from top to bottom, and potentially – I’d say there’s a handful of players that are probably out of reach – but realistically, just about everybody’s in play, other than a handful of guys. So that’s been a little bit different than what it’s been; it doesn’t change our process any.”

Translation? Not looking to trade way up, but watch out NFL, we’re open for business. The Patriots are in great position to add young bodies, which they sorely need, especially on defense.

Of course, what the fans are hungering for is all the recent controversy surrounding Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, etc. Wouldn’t it have been amusing if Belichick, instead of conducting a press conference, sent out cryptic tweets instead?

There’s all the talk about the Patriots possibly drafting a quarterback. Remember, when Jimmy Garappolo was drafted, Belichick said after the pick “We all know what Tom’s age and contract situation is” referring to Brady. But beforehand he certainly isn’t getting into that as Tom beating Time has delayed all of that.

“We’ll do what’s best for the football team,” Belichick said when asked about whether he anticipated drafting a quarterback again this time around.. “We’ll look at our opportunities and do what’s best. …. Yeah, again, I’m happy to answer the draft questions. I’m not going to get into everything else here.”

That last sentence was in response to how long he thought Brady would continue to play. You knew this time he wasn’t going to touch that nugget.

So we’ll see what happens. Belichick, as he said, knows you don’t judge a draft by the first year. Rookies get better with age, and the whole Patriots roster is basically an example of that.

Including one Tom Brady.

“Some players had very little production in year one,” he said. “Guys like Trey Flowers, James White, Tom. There are a number of players that fall into that category. We have players this year that were on the roster last year and didn’t have a lot of production. We’ll see how it goes this year, I don’t know.”

The truth is this may be the time of year that Belichick enjoys the most – the “team building” part of the year. He’s been seen making the rounds at college pro days, coaching up players he may never really end up coaching on his team but rather coach against.

“Yeah, I enjoy all of it,” Belichick said. “It’s a good refresher. You go back and see where the college players are, what they’re going through, what their process is.”

Our process now is to basically just wait and see what the Patriots and Belichick do. They won’t drop any hints, you can be sure of that.

But, OK, maybe the Show About Nothing can be a little entertaining.

“So the preseason schedule was released,” Belichick said, “and I noticed that on the schedule there are no games in May, June or July. Preseason games are in August, so it doesn’t look like the regular season is going to start until September this year. So that’s four months of team building. …

“This (the draft) is one piece of the puzzle, it’ one part of the process, but there are no games scheduled in May.”

Yes, on Friday, Bill Belichcik stuck to the script. As you would expect.

Tom King can be reached at 594-1251, tking@nashuatelegraph.com., or @Telegraph_TomK.