The Patriots don’t appear to fully know what’s going on with quarterback Tom Brady or tight end Rob Gronkowski, what with both All-Pro players skipping the start of organized team activities.


Is Brady really unhappy with the lack of love for him coming out of Gillette Stadium? Is Gronkowski really looking to play somewhere other than in New England next season?


And the Fickle Foxboro Faithful has spent the last five weeks wondering what coach Bill Belichick [...]

By Rich Garven The Worcester Telegram & Gazette

The Patriots don’t appear to fully know what’s going on with quarterback Tom Brady or tight end Rob Gronkowski, what with both All-Pro players skipping the start of organized team activities.

Is Brady really unhappy with the lack of love for him coming out of Gillette Stadium? Is Gronkowski really looking to play somewhere other than in New England next season?

And the Fickle Foxboro Faithful has spent the last five weeks wondering what coach Bill Belichick has been doing this offseason. The answer to that is easy.

The Patriots opted not to overpay the likes of left tackle Nate Solder and receiver Danny Amendola, added reasonably priced veterans like defensive end Adrian Clayborn and cornerback Jason McCourty, and, most importantly, positioned themselves to do almost anything they want when the 2018 NFL Draft gets underway Thursday night.

The Patriots are poised to add young, cost-controlled talent thanks to a stockpile of eight selections, including two picks each in the first and second rounds and one in the third. Those would be Nos. 23, 31, 43, 63, and 95.

Only the Cleveland Browns, with five picks in the top 64; the Indianapolis Colts, five picks in the top 67; and the Buffalo Bills, six picks in the top 96, have a better concentration of top-shelf selections.

The Patriots also have a pair of sixth-round picks and a seventh-rounder, but none in the fourth or fifth rounds so they almost assuredly will trade down to bridge the gap rather than sitting out from picks 96 to 196.

Trading down is something they’ve down 21 times since Belichick came aboard in 2000. They’ve traded up 20 times and dealt for players or future draft considerations 21 times.

So going by the numbers, the Patriots are wont to do just about anything.

“We evaluate the players in the draft and we look at our opportunities,” Belichick recently said. “As those opportunities come closer, we evaluate what our options are and try to do what we feel like is best, whether that’s stay and pick a player, move up for a player, move back and trade into next year.

“We’ve traded draft picks for players on the day of the draft; we did that last year. So, whatever the opportunities are, we’ll evaluate them as they come and do what we think is best.”

Ideally, if it’s a pick-for-player deal it’ll work out better than the aforementioned one that saw the Patriots acquire tight end James O’Shaughnessy in April only to cut him in September.

There has been an uptick in talk among football followers that the Patriots might be willing to package their two first-round picks to move into the top 10 and draft UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen or, should he slide, North Carolina State defensive end Bradley Chubb.

That remains to be seen, but history says otherwise. The Patriots have never moved up more than six spots in the first round in the 18 drafts Belichick has presided over.

It happened twice, both times in 2012. They moved from 27 to 21 to snare defensive end Chandler Jones and from 31 to 25 to snag linebacker Dont’a Hightower.

More likely is the Patriots dish one of their first-round picks for multiple selections in lower rounds. That’s something they did five times from 2009 to ’13.

While the Patriots fell eight points shy of winning their sixth Super Bowl last season, they still have needs — and lots of them.

They could use help at left tackle, tight end, receiver, defensive end, linebacker, and safety. Finding their future starting quarterback also wouldn’t hurt, with Brady set to turn 41 in August.

What the Patriots won’t do, unlike so many other teams, is to reach to fill those needs.

“I think it’s important to acquire good players wherever they are,” Belichick said. “If you take a player at a position that might be a so-called ‘need’ but he’s not good enough to fill that need, then it’s a wasted pick. So, I don’t understand the whole need thing. I understand player value, and that’s what we try to go by.”