I don't care about 2000-2013. I care about the current state of the team. These are 2 completely different discussions.
My claim is that this team is bereft of talent, and they are looking up at everyone in the division and most of the conference.
It would REALLY help if you read the thread. Like....it pretty much answers your questions if you give it a chance.
At least read the first post thoroughly. It explains why I used the data from 2000-2013. Long story short, I needed a league-wide benchmark by which to analyze this. Because you need to see players' careers over a longer period of time, you have to end the data set early enough to account for a players' full career. You can't get a baseline for what constitutes draft success by looking at the 2021 draft because those players haven't even reached their second contract yet, and we have no idea how it will go. For example, Kyle Pitts might turn out to be one of the great TEs in NFL history - he certainly has the talent for it. But he's not remotely lived up to his status as the #4 overall pick in 2021. So you have to get a baseline, and ending the data in 2013 is a proper cutoff.
Turns out that over a 14-year period, the average team made 8 picks per year, and had 1.7 5-year starters come from that, and fewer than one player per draft (about one every two drafts, as it were) make at least 2 Pro Bowls.
So that's the baseline: If you make 8 picks in a given season, you can expect to get 1.7 players who manage to be 5-year starters in the NFL, and about one player in every two drafts will make 2+ pro bowls.
Since we're looking at guys who stay in the league for 5 years, you can see why it's very difficult to judge a player drafted two years ago. Right? You can see that, yes?
But in post #24 in that thread, I looked through the 2018 draft, and I looked at it from the perspective of draft slots. Since, you know, that really matters. The Pats were a much better than average team at drafting talent from 2000-2013 and they did it while having the WORST average draft slot in the league, year after year (not every single year, but on average). That's because they were always one of the best teams in the league. And obviously the worse your draft slot is, the harder it is to draft players as good as the teams drafting in better draft slots. That's kind of the premise behind the whole draft.
So looking at those 19 years, and using pro-football-reference's metric called "AV", you can figure out what the expected career AV a player has based on his draft position. And then what I did was take all that and see how each team did relative to their draft position, and came up with what the data shows should be their EXPECTED AV, and compared it to what they actually got in AV from those draft picks.
From 2000-2018, the Pats have:
- Gotten a career AV of 2,801
- Had an expected career AV of 2,305
- Gotten a net career AV of +496 over expected (which comes to +3.0 per pick)
So from 2000-2018, the Pats averaged 3 more AV per pick over expected given their draft position. Which is outstanding.
Now, how would you go about evaluating the Pats' drafts from 2020-2023? Obviously you can't even begin to evaluate 2023 unless you're just going by what the draft "experts" tell you is a good pick. So we have to throw that one out completely. But how do you know whether the 2022 draft was good or not? It's way too soon to tell (see the Kyle Pitts example at the beginning of this post).
But using the 2000-2013 data as a baseline, a GOOD draft nets you TWO guys who start for 5+ years in the NFL, and every two years getting one guy who makes 2+ pro bowls over their entire career.
So...
2020
37 - Dugger - already a 2-year starter who will start this year - very much on track to be a 5-year starter (unless he gets hurt)
60 - Uche - not technically a starter yet but obviously a major impact player for them on D
87 - Jennings - not a starter, but has been in the league for 3 years and will play somewhere this year
91 - Asiasi - fighting just to stay in the NFL
101 - Keene - zip
159 - Rohrwasser - worst draft pick in BB's tenure, IMO
182 - Onwenu - already a 2-year starter who will start this year - same as Dugger - should be an NFL starter for a long time
195 - Herron - not a starter, but he's been a guy who plays
204 - Maluia - zip
230 - Woodward - zip
Summary: Dugger is an absolute stud and very well could make several pro bowls before he's done. Uche is really good and had a breakout season last year. Not technically a starter but clearly a terrific young player. Onwenu is really good and is already a 2-year starter and should start for years. So that's 3 legit impact players from that draft, which automatically makes it a really good draft, even though they whiffed on a bunch of picks. Add in that Jennings, Asiasi, and Herron could be guys that stay in the league for a while because they're good enough to be NFL players, but not good enough to play a ton, and this is a really good draft as it turns out.
2021
15 - Jones - in his 3rd year as a starter now
38 - Barmore - not technically a starter, but probably their best interior defensive lineman by talent
96 - Perkins - potential is there, but not gonna make it
120 - Stevenson - not technically a starter yet (he will be this year), but one of the better RBs in the entire NFL
177 - McGrone - just fighting to stay in the league
188 - Bledsoe - a guy who probably will bounce back and forth between the PS and 53-man roster
197 - Sherman - zip
242 - Nixon - see Bledsoe
Summary: Mac Jones is a starting NFL QB. He will never be Tom Brady, but that was a terrific pick at #15. Barmore is an absolute stud as long as he can stay healthy. Stevenson is already one of the better RBs in the league. That's three impact players from that draft, and Bledsoe and Nixon could still provide value in the NFL. Based on expected value, the Pats had a really nice 2021 draft.
2022
29 - Strange - started last year and will start this year and for years to come
50 - Thornton - the talent is there but injuries have gotten in the way so at this point it's been a bad pick but let's see how it goes
85 - M Jones - already an electric talent; may never be a "starter" but will clearly be an impact player for them in all three phases
121 - J Jones - legal issues are there and it's troubling, but from a talent standpoint he's already one of the better corners in the NFL
127 - Strong - not yet a starter (and may never be one) but he's in a position to be a legit contributor in the NFL at the RB spot
137 - Zappe - looking like he's forging a career as a long-time NFL backup, which has a lot of value
183 - K Harris - like Strong, looks like he'll be a major contributor for them at the RB spot, though not a starter
200 - Roberts - fighting to be a regular on the DL
210 - Hines - fighting to make the NFL roster
245 - Stueber - fighting to be a regular on the OL
Summary: Every single one of those picks has the potential to be a good or legit NFL player. Obviously they won't all pan out. But Strange is a longtime starter barring injury. M Jones may never start but he's a major impact player for them. J Jones, assuming he can stay on the field, is already a high-level NFL corner. Strong and Harris may be the future of the running back position for them, but you know how that goes - they might only last til the end of their rookie contracts before the team cycles them out. But they'll be legit contributors. Zappe is fine as a backup QB. This was an excellent draft, and it becomes superlative if Thornton can come close to reaching his potential.
So that's three good drafts in a row.
Your complaint is basically: Ok, so why aren't the Patriots winning more?
Well, in 2021 they had Mac as a rookie, and they went 10-7 and made the playoffs. Last year they had Judge and Patricia running the offense, which was a catastrophe. And even then, they could have won these games (they didn't, but could have):
at GB - they had the ball at the GB 46 yard line in OT just needing a few more yards to get a game-winning FG. And that was with their third stringer at QB (Zappe)
at Min - Pats were up 26-23 in the fourth quarter against them and nearly pulled off an incredible play at the end
at LV - chance to win the game at the end until Meyers' incomprehensible decision to throw the ball to Chandler Jones
vs Cin - at the Cincy goal line in the last minute and Stevenson fumbles the game away
They did NOT win those games, plain and simple. And you may say, "Well they weren't talented enough to win, obviously." But in at least two of them, it wasn't due to lack of talent (LV, Cin). Because the two guys that blew those games (it's a team sport but they made the biggest mistakes that sealed their fate) were Meyers and Stevenson. Stevenson is already one of the best RBs in the NFL so that was just a bad fumble, and wasn't a measure of his *talent*. And Meyers has enough talent to have secured a 3-year, $33 million deal this past offseason, which means he's a very legit NFL wide receiver. Not an all pro, but a legit WR with real talent. He just made a mind-bogglingly bad play at the worst possible moment. Totally out of character for him. No explanation for it, but it wasn't because he's not talented. But winning just two of these four puts them at 10-7 with Goofy and Mickey Mouse as their offensive coaching staff. A mistake that has been quickly corrected, thank God.
So I dunno man, I don't know what to tell you. The Pats under BB have been a good drafting team, and the last few drafts have been way better than you give them credit for. If you think they haven't been, you do the work I did and evaluate all the drafts by some objective measure and then evaluate all the other teams and compare it to NE.
But yeah, it would help if you read the thread.