CBS Sports Ranks Patriots As Having Best Draft In Entire NFL
BOSTON (CBS) -- We tend to get a little hyper-focused on the Patriots around these here parts. As we obsess over every pick made by the local team and get inundated by opinions -- good, bad, and otherwise -- on them, we tend to lose sight of what the rest of the league did on the all-important draft weekend.
And according to one national outlet, we might have missed how well the Patriots did compared to their peers in this year's draft.
CBS Sports' Ryan Wilson compared the picks made by teams to where the drafted players were anticipated to be drafted. So, if a player expected to be drafted in the first round ends up going in the second round, the team that drafted that player gets a favorable grade for finding good value. (See: The Christian Barmore pick.)
Using that scale, the Patriots came out with the single most valuable draft in all of the NFL.
That is of course a subjective matter, as it's merely a comparison to one internet draft board. But in the days following the draft, such perspective is always worth considering.
Wilson's favorite pick by the Patriots was the aforementioned Barmore, whom CBS Sports had as the 29th pick. (The Patriots traded up to draft him at 38.)
The pick of Ronnie Perkins in the third round was listed as the Patriots' best value pick, after grading him with first-round talent.
CBS also had Mac Jones as the 11th-best player, so the Patriots getting him at 15 without giving anything up represented yet another value pick.
As for the rest of the group:
--Running back Rhamondre Stevenson had a late third-round grade by CBS, but was taken in the middle of the fourth round.
--Linebacker Cameron McGrone had a mid-fourth round grade, but was taken late in the fifth round. Safety Joshuah Bledsoe had a late fifth-round grade and was taken early in the sixth.
--The Patriots' sixth-round pick (tackle William Sherman) and seventh-round pick (receiver Tre Nixon) were the only players selected higher than their rankings.
For what it's worth, around the rest of the AFC East, Buffalo had the seventh-best draft by this standard, followed by the Jets at 14 and the Dolphins at 18. The Rams were rated with the worst draft, while the Super Bowl-champion Buccaneers weren't too far behind at 29th.
It is, of course, merely one way to evaluate a draft. How the players contribute to the team in the coming years will ultimately determine how good of a draft it was. But for now, in terms of making solid decisions in a strange draft year, at least one evaluation says that nobody did better than the Patriots.
