Between the offense, defense and special teams, the only player who started for the Pats last night who was drafted in the first round was Nate Solder, the fifth year OT from Colorado.

Talent evaluation and coaching, gents. Pretty damn impressive.

Reppin for the white folk

Hitting the lottery with Tom Brady makes up for a whole lot.

Bunch of lunch pails.

I just went back to 2010 but I'm pretty sure the only 1st round pick the Patriots have made who ISN'T a starter is the rookie this year, Dominique Easly.

Dont'a Hightower
Chandler Jones
Nate Solder
Devin Mccourty

Still means they're doing well in the draft.

You're missing Dont'a Hightower. He was a first round pick in 2012.

The Patriots usually draft at the low end of the first round. There usually isn't all that much difference in the guys selected in the bottom half of the round from those taken in the second.

In the age of the salary cap, this actually makes a lot of sense.

All the better reason to have Chavis on board to develop the players on D.

Regardless if you are a cowboys fan or not, Jerry Jones has concluded he rather take lesser players who will give him 110% and cost less than the all star who costs a fortune. The unknown guys play with a chip on their shoulder.

Wilfork was a 1st rounder and anchors the defense. OP's point that NE develops players extremely well is still on point.

The patriots offense has one starter from the first round, OT Nate Solder


The defense has 5.

DT Wilfork
DE Chandler Jones
LB Dont'a Hightower
CB Darrelle Revis
S Devin McCourty


If you include 2nd rounders:
RB Shane Vereen
TE Rob Gronkowski
RT Sebastian Vollmer
LB Jamie Collins
S Patrick Chung


So, 10/22 starters were 1st and 2nd rounders.

OP, thanks for bringing this up. So I looked at the Patriots depth charts.

Offense, picks by round

1st: 1, the LT
2nd: 4 (Gronkowski, the backup QB, the RT, Vereen-the apb back)
3rd: 1, LaFell,#1 WR who was an average #3 WR with Carolina, probably not getting paid much
4th: 2 (the Center, the backup Guard)
5th: 2 (Hoom...the blocking TE, the backup tackle)
6th: 1, Brady
7th: 1, Edelman
Undrafted: 9

The O roster only has 2 significant Free Agents: LaFell who was mediocre with Carolina, and Amendola who they probably overpaid for but needed a slot WR/returner.

Most impressively, they cobbled together the interior OL without high draft picks.


http://www.patriots.com/schedule-and-stats/depth-chart.html

When you cheat first rounders are not needed to win

quote:

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When you cheat first rounders are not needed to win

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Go **** yourself!

I forgot about Slater

Lot's of Gym Rat's on the team.
Lot's of Film Junkies.
Lot's of Scrappy Guys

Brady likes 'em scrappy.

Defense is a different story.

5 First Rounders
5 Second rounders
2 Third Rounders
0 Fourth Rounders
2 Fifth rounders
4 6th Rounders
4 Undrafted

They gave Darelle Revis a huge FA contract. Browner, the other CB would have gotten a bigger contract but he had off-field issues. He is a very solid CB.

To their credit, Ninkovich was not good with his previous 2 teams. Neither did Alan Branch, one of the backup DLs. Ayers had 1 good season with his previous team. Chris Jones, the other starting DT never got a chance with Houston. The caveat to all the DL is that they play in front of a really good secondary.

So it looks like they have found and developed some good players. But they also have some higher draft picks riding the pine:

2nd: Branch and #2FS Tavon Wilson
3rd: SS Duron Harmon, CB Logan Ryan

In fairness, they drafted both Harmon and Ryan before they knew they were going to sign Revis and Browner.

And moreover, all of their #1 draft picks start and most of their 2nd rounders start.

quote:

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Lot's of Gym Rat's on the team.
Lot's of Film Junkies.
Lot's of Scrappy Guys

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Kinda related.......saw a headline of an article that said that neither Super Bowl team had a starter that was 5* HS recruit.

If true, I wonder if that's ever happened before since ranking high schoolers came out.