The Trick to Belichick's Sick Picks

[singaporesoxfan]

Over at Grantland, Bill Barnwell has a really good summary of why Belichick is one of the best at accumulating draft picks:
 
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/bill-belichick-nfl-draft-new-england-patriots/
 
Barnwell argues that Belichick's success comes from the following strategy:

• Trading a pick now for a pick that’s guaranteed to be better
• Trading down and deal one pick for several selections, taking advantage of the league’s level of overcertainty in evaluation and its tendency to underestimate the value of midround picks.
• Combining those two types of trades and repeating the process to create really long chains.
• Staying largely out of signing free agents, and thereby accruing compensatory selections. Barnwell estimates that the value of the compensatory picks that the Patriots have acquired based on their draft slot is roughly between the value of having the first overall pick and the second overall pick. 

 
None of that is news to Pats fans, of course, but I liked how Barnwell puts together the chains of BB's draft trades.

 

[Omar's Wacky Neighbor]

Some day we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny:
 

 
It seems impossible that the entire history of the NFL changed because the Patriots were capped out and couldn’t re-sign two competent veteran defenders, but that’s exactly what happened.

 

[singaporesoxfan]

Specifically, Barnwell traces the Brady pick, which was a comp pick, to the Pats' cap issues meaning they lost defensive tackle Mark Wheeler and linebacker Todd Collins to free agency.