Tom King

It’s our favorite week coming up.

NFL Draft Week.

And the non-news that’s fit to print or post until the bell rings this coming Thursday night.

This is probably going to be a boring draft in terms of college stars, because there isn’t a flock of quarterbacks like there usually are. If you know the names of, say, two-thirds of the first round selections and their bios already, well, you have a lot of great time on your hands and have spent it following your passion. Careers have been made thanks to this one event that for the NFL is its second biggest deal of the year after the Super Bowl. Incredible.

What about your New England Patriots? What direction could they go in? Right now they’re slated to pick at No. 21 in the first round on Thursday night. They’ll pick in the second and third round on Friday night, which many feel is the more important night that shows up a few years down the road.

The draft hasn’t been all that kind to Bill Belichick over the years; see N’Keal Harry. Last year that may have changed as they seem to have found the most important thing, that franchise quarterback in Mac Jones. They also got a decent player up front defensively in Christian Barmore, like Jones out of Alabama, and Oklahoma running back Rhamondre Stevenson.

Belichick will drive us crazy by trading down, sometimes even out of the first round.

“We’re always looking for value, no matter where it is,” this year’s Patriots personnel chief, Matt Groh, said during the annual pre-draft media briefing a week ago. “We want our 21st pick to be valuable, just ike we want our 54th pick to be vaulable and kind of commesurat with where we see that player helping our franchise. There is good depth (in this draft).

“So it’s finding that value for the positions that you think can have, I use the word instant impact for wide receivers, and it’s not just wide receivers. Hopefully your first round pick is coming in and roviding something for you right away and similarly with the second and third round picks.”

And with the Patriots, sometimes their draft picks need a “redshirt year” and spend a lot of Sundays on the game inactive list. That can be maddening, but sometimes it works. Perfect example: Running back Damien Harris. He’s gotten his share of the load the last couple of seasons when healthy, showed plenty of talent, but he was nowhere to be found his rookie season.

Belichick, of course, will always be able to claim he drafted Tom Brady in the sixth round in 2000, his first year drafting, a year in which he didn’t have a first round pick.

But the drafts the next few years set the tone for the first wave of Super Bowls, with defensive linemen Richard Seymour, Vince Wilfork and Ty Warren. Belichick went for the beef. Then, a decade later, he went for speed and athleticism with two picks in the first round grabbing linebacker Dont’a Hightower and Chandler Jones.

The Patriots need to go that route again. They need to get faster.

“Yeah, without a doubt we’re looking to get faster everywhere,” Groh said. “It’s not just defense, it’s offense, it’s special teams. It’s not just linebacker. I think there’s multiple ways o do that. I think we did some of that last year.

Groh talked about the new breed of defensive player, such as the safety type (think Kyle Dugger) who can basically be used as a linebacker.

“These days you can put these guys all over the place and that’s certainly one way to increase the overall speed of the defense,” he said.

It will be interesting. The Patriots could decide at No. 21 they can get a player later in the first round that they could get at 21 and either add more picks this year but more likely stock up for next year in the name of “good value”. Yeah it will drive us all crazy again if that happens.

Starting this weekend and extending into next week, the rumors will be flying. It’s been a wild, wild off-season with teams putting a premium on quarterbacks and receivers. Something that NFL teams rarely did – trade – suddenly became the popular thing to do, especially when diva receivers tried to force their way out of town. Heck, the Patriots did that in grabbing Devonte Parker from Miami after they acquired diva Tyreek Hill.

And now the draft is said to be chock full of receivers. Please, Patriots, abstain until the second round.

We’d rather have you make a boring pick for the offensive or defensive line than draft another N’Keal Harry.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.

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