New England Patriots: Seven 2019 NFL Draft predictions
By Hal Bent
The New England Patriots are traditionally a difficult team to forecast come April, but here are seven bold predictions for the 2019 NFL Draft.
The New England Patriots have been under the direction and control of head coach and de facto general manager Bill Belichick since 2000. Ever since he cost the Patriots a first-round draft pick to pry away from the New York Jets, Belichick has been tied to the NFL Draft – mainly due to his love of trading up, down, and even out of it altogether. His strategies and gameplans for the 2019 NFL Draft are almost impossible to predict.
Of course, mention the words “Patriots” and “draft,” and the penalties the team has faced for various transgressions come immediately to mind… with the team being stripped of draft picks on multiple occasions (first-round draft picks in 2008 and 2016, and a fourth-round draft pick in 2017).
Despite those penalties, the team has managed to overcome these and other handicaps to become the most successful team of the salary cap/weighted schedule era of the NFL. A major part of that success comes from the Patriots mining the NFL Draft for value, and treating it as a pipeline of young talent necessary to fill-in the roster with contributors on both sides of the football.
Like it is for any team, making projections of how college players will ultimately fare as pros is a crap-shoot for the Patriots. That said, Belichick has been able to repeatedly hedge his bets and take calculated risks to replenish his roster over the years.
Figuring out how he does it exactly is always the most interesting question. As this will be the 20th NFL Draft in New England with Belichick at the helm, there is a finally a bit of an expectation that some educated “draft prognosticators” might be able to figure out what his plans and patterns are when it comes to drafting.
Year after year, these prognosticators file their mock drafts online in vain – drafts littered with players who the Patriots pass over repeatedly (Lamar Jackson, anyone?). Many analysts have the Patriots picking a cornerback, a wide receiver, a tight end, and a quarterback in the 2019 NFL Draft. This, despite Belichick’s documented love of drafting offensive and defensive linemen early in the draft and often.
Belichick’s initial first-round draft pick was defensive end Richard Seymour. Despite the occasional dalliance at running back, defensive back, or tight end, most first-round picks under his rule have been big bodies: defensive end Ty Warren in 2003, nose tackle Vince Wilfork in 2004, guard Logan Mankins in 2005, tackle Nate Solder in 2011, defensive end Chandler Jones in 2012, defensive tackle Dominique Easley in 2014, defensive tackle Malcom Brown in 2015, and offensive tackle Isaiah Wynn last year.
To hit on a prediction of a Belichick pick in the draft requires a combination of luck and studying past drafts for patterns of players taken. Rather than just another mock draft, it makes more sense to look at the Patriots’ draft in a more macro view.
With seven rounds in the draft, here are seven draft day predictions for the New England Patriots: