Will Patriots be a team on the move?

With two picks in the first round and two more in the second, the team has put itself in a position to move up in the draft if it so desires. The Patriots head into the draft holding the 23rd and 31st choices overall.

FOXBORO – The 2018 NFL Draft could be a moving experience for the Patriots.

Holding two picks in tonight’s first round of the draft – not to mention two more in Friday night’s second round – the Patriots have the means to move up.

Then again, given the fact that the second of those picks, their own, is at No. 31 (next-to-last in the opening round), they may be prone to trade that choice to move down in exchange for additional selections later.

In Bill Belichick, after all, we’re talking about a man who has averaged more than three trades per draft over his 18 years as head coach in New England.

The phone lines are always open at One Patriot Place.

According to the coach, the Patriots take a wait-and-see approach to the proceedings.

“We evaluate the players in the draft and we look at our opportunities,” said Belichick. “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 (or) 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 (sending a fifth-round pick to Kansas City for a sixth rounder and tight end James O’Shaughnessy who ultimately failed to make the team). So, whatever the opportunities are, we’ll evaluate them as they come and do what we think is best.”

All total, the Patriots currently hold eight picks in the draft – two each in the first (beginning with the Rams’ selection at 23, part of the compensation they received in the deal that sent wide receiver Brandin Cooks to the Rams), second (the extra selection there, No. 43, obtained from San Francisco in exchange for quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo) and sixth rounds, one in both the third and seventh rounds.

The Patriots last made two first-round selections in 2012, coming away with Syracuse defensive end Chandler Jones and Alabama linebacker Dont’a Hightower with the 21st and 25th picks, respectively.

The team’s needs include offensive left tackle (a 325-pound void created when veteran Nate Solder signed a four-year, $62-million contract with the New York Giants), linebacker (where Dont’a Hightower’s injury history only accentuates the need), the defensive edge, a developmental quarterback to bring on board with 40-year-old starter Tom Brady and his 32-year-old backup, Bryan Hoyer (is the Patriots’ reported interest in Lamar Jackson, the former Heisman Trophy winner from Louisville, to be taken seriously?), and a solid tight end to back up Rob Gronkowski (Dwayne Allen’s first season in New England was a major disappointment).

The three day-long draft kicks off with the first round at 8 tonight, resumes with rounds two and three starting at 7 p.m. on Friday and concludes with the final four rounds beginning at noon Saturday.

Recently, Belichick said, time at Gillette Stadium has been spent “really trying to fine-tune our evaluations” as the team tries to weigh the talent at one position against the talent at another.

“I won’t say it’s easy, but I’d say it’s relatively easy to take the guards and rank them one, two, three, four and five or take the corners and rank them one, two, three, four or five,” said Belichick. “When you start talking about the third guard and the second corner, the third guard and the eighth corner or however those grades line up, whether you’re talking about players that are specialty type players that are role players that maybe are very good at a certain role but they’re not three-down players. What are their values relative to other players who maybe are three-down players but at a lesser skill set? That’s where it kind of gets tricky putting the whole board together.”

And therein lies the greatest challenge of all, according to the coach.

“I’m not saying it’s easy to rank the players in position in order, but that’s a lot easier than trying to compare players at different positions, at different levels, guys who have played three or four years at high-level conferences against the best players in college football versus other players who have played at lesser levels but are ascending players that are very talented players and trying to project how those values match up,” said Belichick. “That’s the hard part, really.”