Socci's Notebook: Gil Brandt Considers This Year's Draft 'A Patriot Draft'
By Bob Socci, 98.5 The Sports Hub
INDIANAPOLIS (CBS) -- As chief architect of "America's Team" for nearly three full decades, Gil Brandt didn't just understand the importance of doing one's homework in building a successful NFL organization; he embodied it.
Back in the '60s, Brandt helped introduce the use of computers to football scouting, while sorting through the traits and skills of players the Cowboys evaluated. Such investment in innovation mined the talent that would eventually string together a record 20 straight winning seasons.
Along the way, Dallas reached the Super Bowl five times, winning it twice, with the rosters Brandt assembled.
In years since, Brandt's seen the Patriots produce a stretch of 15 consecutive winning campaigns, while capturing four Super Bowl titles. All that while, he's watched admiringly how Bill Belichick and his staff leave seemingly little, if any, detail unexamined in player evaluation.
That's why Brandt believes Belichick and Co. are set up to enjoy a very productive draft, even without the first-round pick they lost as part of the NFL's "DeflateGate" punishment.
In fact, Brandt went so far on Friday as to declare, "This is a draft that's a Patriot draft."
His reasoning? The pool of 2016 prospects, including the 300-plus players invited to the NFL Scouting Combine this week, feature only a relative handful who are far and away better than the rest.
"There's not really many first rounders," Brandt said on Friday, standing in the foyer of Lucas Oil Stadium. "There's a lot of guys that are in the category of 20 to 50. You don't have 28 [true] first-rounders, so the [teams] who do their homework are going to do pretty well, because all these [players] look the same."
At present, the Patriots own six selections in the upcoming draft, with the potential of adding four as compensatory picks. They'll choose for the first time in the second round, in the 60th slot overall.
"I think that they'll take the best player available ," Brandt said. "Last year the best player was [Malcom Brown] from Texas and he fell to them, a pretty good player."
Contrastingly, ex-Tampa Bay general manager Mark Dominik, now an analyst for ESPN and SiriusXM, envisions a possible scenario similar to five years ago, when the Pats took both Shane Vereen and Stevan Ridley. The former went in the second round; the latter in the third.
"I think this is a year where Bill Belichick decides, 'Okay, I'm going to go back and draft a running back, maybe in the second or third round again,'" Dominik said. "Dion Lewis and James White, I think they're really good in their roles. But they need that every-down back, the kind of guy that they can trust to can catch the ball out of the backfield, that can protect and kind of do everything. This feels like a good class where they can maybe steal one in the second round."
Dominik spoke while running backs were working out on the field behind him, trying to prove they can do more than rush the ball. Especially for a team like the Patriots.
"What they're going to want to see is who can catch the ball," Dominik said. "Who's the guy who isn't [Alabama's Derrick] Henry, who's not going to be there and obviously, [Ohio State's] Ezekiel Elliot, he's not going to be there at 32, let alone 60.
"I think they're really watching today to see who catches the ball. And from the interviews they've had these last couple of days, 'Who do we feel is smart enough to handle the volume of what we ask them to do in Josh McDaniels' offense?' Once they find that, especially from the intelligence aspect, then it's about who catches the ball real naturally out here. I think that's what the Patriots are going to be heavily watching, and that's what I'd be watching too."
If New England decides to invest in such a back through free agency, Dominik thinks there's an obvious veteran to target.
"[Matt] Forte makes a lot of sense, let's just be honest," Dominik said. "A lot of people are tying him to Miami, with Adam Gase knowing him there and what's going to happen with Lamar Miller. But to me, he is the perfect back for what the Patriots want to do.
"In Matt Forte's case, you're going to play up the fact that, 'We're the Patriots, more than likely we're going to be in the hunt. For an older, established player like that, he's going to want that just as much as DeMarcus Ware and [Peyton] Manning went to Denver [thinking], 'How do we win a ring?' I'd be hard-pressed as a veteran to sit there and say, 'What other team can I choose besides New England to go to for a chance to win a ring?'"
BELICHICK DISCIPLES
When the Combine commenced on Wednesday, media heard from three young general managers who were plucked off the Belichick-Patriot tree by their respective clubs. They included Tampa Bay's Jason Licht, Tennessee's Jon Robinson and Detroit's Bob Quinn. In each instance, reporters listened to the young executives reflect on their experiences in Foxborough.
The following day afforded an opportunity to ask one of their front-office counterparts, Cleveland's executive vice president Sashi Brown, about another Belichick protege who's attracting attention around the league along the sideline.
Brown, a Boston native who grew up in Framingham and graduated from Harvard Law School, was recently promoted to executive vice president in Cleveland. Before eventually hiring Cincinnati's ex-offensive coordinator Hue Jackson as head coach, he interviewed Pats defensive coordinator Matt Patricia.
"Matt's a talented young coach," Brown said. "Passionate, relates well to players, similar to Hue. Very innovative in his approach, tough, holds players accountable, comes out of a tremendous system that has had unparalleled success really in New England under Belichick and the Krafts.
"And so for all those reasons, his experience in a successful organization, his ability to relate to players, his toughness, accountability, intelligence, raw intelligence off the charts, I think Matt'll be a head coach here shortly in the league. We thought Hue was the right choice for us, but [Matt] was an impressive young guy to meet."
Bob Socci is the radio play-by-play voice of the New England Patriots. You can follow him on Twitter @BobSocci.