The part of the interview process is only a part of the puzzle in the component of scouting as they try to have an overall of the prospect players’ personality, character, and preparedness.

“You have 15 minutes but it’s really not as much time as you think,” he explained. “Each player there’s something specific you’re trying to gain a little insight on. The underclassmen this is your first exposure to them. You haven’t had a chance to speak with them at an all-star game or talk to them much at all. It’s really your first introduction before you get into some of the deeper stuff, which will continue throughout the next few months leading to the draft”.

In having an idea of how much of these interviews are figuring out what the answers to questions are or just how they handle the interaction overall, Caserio explained:

“It’s a combination of everything. How they handle the question, how they handle the situation. Are they truthful? You might have some information based on your sources. Some handle it better than others but it encompasses everything. Some come in with a notebook, they’re prepared. It’s different because it’s more of a personal interaction. You can see them around coaches and other people and how they handle it. In the end you have to make your best guesstimate as to how they’re going to handle our environment and our situation.”

In sharing his thoughts with Patriots Football Weekly, Caserio is optimistic with the overall depth of the draft and defense players.

“Defensively, on the whole, it looks like a good group. There’s a good group of safeties, there’s a good group of corners, there’s a good group of linebackers, there’s a good group of defensive linemen – players that are going to play with their hand on the ground. There’s good depth across the draft. As usual the underclassmen are a big part of it with 73 of them declaring. That’s almost 25 percent of the 288 or so that are going to get picked, now not all of them will get drafted.

“There are a lot of good football players and we just have to dig through it and figure out what makes the most sense for your team moving forward.”

In terms of this year’s combine and relation to this year’s draft (just five at its disposal), Caserio said the lack of picks has no relevance on the combine activities.

“It’s really more from a numbers standpoint,” he said. “You still do the same thing in terms of you go through and evaluate the players as you normally would. Right now we have five picks. Could that change? Possibly. But that’s where we are right now. We take the draft as it comes and things fall into place. You continue to move forward and build the team accordingly.”

Per Patriots.com, it was mentioned that wide receiver Quinton Patton was scheduled to meet with the Patriots Saturday night. If the meeting happened or not, it’s still unclear.

When asked about his impressions of Coach Bill Belichick, Patton said:

“I ain’t got to be around coach Belichick to know that you got to shut up and just get it done,” he said. “You got to be detail oriented. Just shut up and get it done with him.”

When asked who he compares himself to in terms of skill set: “I don’t compare myself to anybody. I’m Quinton Patton”, he said.

While we learned that wide receiver Tavon Austin got plenty of films of Wes Welker on his iPad, Marshall Faulk compares Tavon Austin as a hybrid-player – “he’s Percy Harvin and Wes Welker wrapped into one.”

Whether these two wide receivers be will around by the 29^th pick, I highly doubt because they are no longer under the radar. Bill Belichick would have to surprise us how he could make that possible if Wes Welker is gone by the time the draft comes.

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As for the head coaches and general managers, there was a lot happening from the moment they took the podium.  Conversations and rumors are at the top of the hour.

Feb 02, 2013; New Orleans, LA USA; Rashad Thornton Sr., of New Orleans, jumps into the air at the Under Armour scouting combine area inside the NFL Experience, pro football

• From the New York Jets anxiety to bring in competition at the quarterback position and the potential to trade Darrelle Revis;
• to whether Miami Dolphins will place a franchise tag on Randy Starks or Sean Smith;
• or if the Buffalo Bills will make-up their mind to commit to Ryan Fitzpatrick; and,
•  it looks like Randy Moss might not have a spot with the San Francisco 49ers.
• The NFL is not playing around with the NFL Players Association on the matter of HGH testing. Adolpho Birch, NFL’s senior vice president of law and labor policy discussed with the media the issues preventing HGH testing.

“It is a disservice to all for us not to focus on the issue at hand, particularly in the context of HGH testing,” Birch said. “It has been a stall. I don’t know if it is a tactic. There is absolutely no reason for this to have taken this long and for us to not have testing implemented. We should have been more than a year into this by now.”

The issue arises based on the concern of the NFLPA’s president, Domonique Foxworth in light of the New Orleans Saint bountygate scandal in which the players challenge NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s power over discipline relating to conduct detrimental (which created distrust). Instead, the NFLPA is appealing for a neutral arbitrator to oversee the entire drug policy, which includes areas of conduct detrimental such as DUIs. The conflict in the matter remains as the NFL is holding to the fact that Goodell’s power over conduct detrimental is a closed issued settled in the 2011 CBA meeting.

The impression is that HGH testing issue would not be resolved soon.

Here’s the schedule of activities.

DAY 1 ARRIVALS*: Group 1 (PK, ST, OL), Group 2 (OL), Group 3 (TE)

DAY 2 ARRIVALS*: Group 4 (QB, WO), Group 5 (QB, WO), Group 6 (RB)

DAY 3 ARRIVALS*: Group 7 (DL), Group 8 (DL), Group 9 (LB)

DAY 4 ARRIVALS: Group 10 (DB), Group 11 (DB)

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As of Wednesday evening, NFL.com communications did not have an update on date or time for Patriots personnel media availability. The Patriots are not the only club not scheduled for media availability. So far, the Baltimore Ravens, Washington Redskins, Tennessee Titans and New Orleans Saints are also not scheduled for an open-to-all reporters media session.

June 12, 2012; Foxborough, MA, USA; New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick talks with reporters before mini camp at the Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports

Bill Belichick took the podium back in 2009. But from 2009 forward, he has sent Director of Player Personnel Nick Caserio to talk to the media. The Patriots prefers to stay away from the main room, and instead, opt to address the New England media in a secluded part of Lucas Oil Stadium.

Patriots director of college scouting, Jon Robinson will also be at the event and he described on Patriots.com the significance of this year’s combine.

“It’s kind of the culmination of really a year’s worth of work,” he said of the combine. “It’s trying to focus in on some questions that you have from a character standpoint or a personality makeup standpoint [from a player] that you had interaction with him at the Senior Bowl, or maybe you interviewed him at the Senior Bowl and you want to spend a little more time with that player, or the East-West Shrine [game], whatever the all-star game may be.” 

“But it gives you another chance to sit down and actually talk to the prospect and get to know him on a personal level,” he continued. “And then from an athletic standpoint and ability standpoint, you kind of measure that relative to what you see on tape, whether that’s at their respective college or at the all-star game.” 

Robinson also explained the combine as a piece of the puzzle for the scouting department.

“There’s a lot of pieces to the puzzle, so we have our spring work that we did this time last year on this year’s prospects, you have your fall evaluations, you have your all-star game evaluations, and then you factor in those combine evaluations and those interviews,” he said. “To add on to that is going to be the pro days, the individual pro days. You’ll kind of measure their individual athletic ability at their pro day relative to what you saw at the combine.” 

As to how this year’s Scouting Combine will indicate the Patriots 29^th draft pick in Bill Belichick view, we can only speculate. NFL Network Analyst Mike Mayock gives his perception on how Belichick could approach the draft in this week’s NFL Network Scouting Combine Conference call following a question on what he knows about the Patriots philosophy toward the draft and given there is some unpredictability at pick 29.

“So I think the way Bill Belichick’ operates is he’s always looking for value. So at 29, where’s my best value? You’d like to match-up with the need, obviously, and the needs would be wide receiver, d-backs, maybe another edge rusher. I think Bill goes in with an open mind, okay, who is going to fall to me at 29? And do I trade out if I don’t like what’s there? Which is always a possibility to trade down. Or can I get some value there?”

“And I think if you’re looking at corner, a guy like Xavier Rhodes, who is a corner or a safety. He’s a 215-pound corner from Florida State. He might now has mostly second-round grades as a corner or a safety, depending on what he runs. The wide receiver position we talked about earlier, who is going to be available at 29? The kid from Baylor, big, good looking, height, width, speed guy in Terrance Williams.”

“So I think when you start getting down to the late first round, it’s really hard projecting. It’s going to be value, hopefully a position of need. If not position of need, somebody slides through that’s a great football player, if not, we’ve to trade ask get out?”

We can only hope the missing pieces of the puzzle are found at the combine, and that the need and value be fulfilled on draft day, but also that the in-house mess (Welker’s, Talib’s, Vollmer’s deal and Dennard’s situation) get a clean result for the best-interest of the team.

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