I made this point on Twitter last night, but look at the 49ers. They hit a home run with Deebo Samuel last year, but did they rest on their laurels? No, they took Aiyuk in the first this year. Meanwhile we drafted Harry, got almost nothing out of him as a rookie, and decided to keep all our eggs in that basket in 2020.
Eschewing the draft market for WRs made sense when we were snapping up FA bargains left and right, but things have gotten expensive, and you really need 3 or 4 good pass catchers nowadays. They should be taking more bites at the apple.
I dunno, it's so weird. Just seems like BB can't seem to successfully draft the WR position. Here's the full list of WR draftees under BB for the Pats:
2002
2nd round, #65 - Deion Branch
7th round, #253 - David Givens
2003
2nd round, #45 - Bethel Johnson
2004
5th round, #164 - PK Sam
2006
2nd round, #36 - Chad Jackson
2008
5th round, #153 - Matthew Slater
2009
3rd round, #83 - Brandon Tate
7th round, #232 - Julian Edelman
2010
3rd round, #90 - Taylor Price
2012
7th round, #235 - Jeremy Ebert
2013
2nd round, #59 - Aaron Dobson
4th round, #102 - Josh Boyce
2014
7th round, #244 - Jeremy Gallon
2016
4th round, #112 - Malcolm Mitchell
2018
6th round, #210 - Braxton Berrios
2019
1st round, #32 - N'Keal Harry
I mean, great start with Branch and Givens. Slater was obviously a great pick, but not for the WR position. Edelman was a home run. Malcolm Mitchell was a huge contributor to a SB victory, but then got hurt and was out of the league soon after. Dobson had a couple of moments, but that's it.
On the whole, that's a giant pile of suck.
Or is it?
Average draft position of the 16 WRs: 132. #132 is in the second half of the 4th round of a typical NFL draft. Historically, 12% of WRs drafted in the 4th round end up starting half the games in their NFL career. So forget "stars". We're just talking about starting half your games. That means that of the 16 WRs drafted by NE, on average, we should expect to see just *2* of them start half their NFL games.
What do we ACTUALLY see?
Branch: 111 of 140 (79.3%)
Givens: 32 of 58 (55.2%)
Johnson: 9 of 50 (18.0%)
Sam: 0 of 2 (0.0%)
Jackson: 1 of 18 (5.6%)
Slater: 3 of 179 (1.7%)
Tate: 20 of 127 (15.7%)
Edelman: 85 of 137 (62.0%)
Price: 0 of 6 (0.0%)
Ebert: 0 of 5 (0.0%)
Dobson: 13 of 24 (54.2%)
Boyce: 3 of 10 (30.0%)
Gallon: 0 of 0 (0.0%)
Mitchell: 6 of 14 (42.9%)
Berrios: 2 of 23 (8.7%)
Harry: 11 of 13 (84.6%)
So 5 of the 16 players drafted at WR under BB have started more than half their games played in the NFL, more than twice the expected number at that position, given where, on average, BB has drafted them.
So given where BB has invested his WR draft capital, he's actually done very well. The problem is that he hasn't spent much upper-level draft capital on WRs. Here's the list again, but this time, just with guys drafted in the 1st or 2nd round:
2002 2nd round, #65 - Deion Branch - 111 of 140 (79.3%)
2003 2nd round, #45 - Bethel Johnson - Johnson: 9 of 50 (18.0%)
2006 2nd round, #36 - Chad Jackson - Jackson: 1 of 18 (5.6%)
2013 2nd round, #59 - Aaron Dobson - Dobson: 13 of 24 (54.2%)
2019 1st round, #32 - N'Keal Harry - 11 of 13 (84.6%)
The numbers tell us that 58% of WRs drafted in the 1st round, and 49% of WRs drafted in the 2nd round start half their NFL games. NE has had 3 of the 5 WRs BB has drafted in the 1st or 2nd round start half the games they've played in. So again, better than league-average success.
But what stings is that none of those guys ever became STARS. Branch is obviously the closest thing to a star (winning a SB MVP), but even he wasn't a star. He was a very good player for a long time, but his best season was 2005, when he had 78 receptions for 998 yds and 5 touchdowns. Fine numbers, and a reliable target for Brady, but that's not the stat line of a star. Never made even a single pro-bowl team. And that's the BEST of this group. Two were colossal failures (Jackson/Johnson), but even Johnson had a longer than average NFL career (4 years compared to 2.66 years on average, and just over 2 years on average for WRs). So really, only one true, godawful bust. Dobson had injury issues but even he had a 3-year career.
We just haven't seen BB hit the true home run with a stud WR pick. Edelman is by FAR the best WR he's ever drafted - and to be honest, one of the best draft picks in Patriots' history, when all is said and done, given his production, the team success with him as a featured player, and where he was drafted (7th round).
We see other teams draft these studs coming out of college and we think, "Why couldn't BB have picked even ONE of those guys?" Well, he hasn't tried very much, given the average draft position he's taken WRs. And he's actually had better-than-average success at picking WRs. I know that the gut reaction to that will be to scoff, but this is what the data shows. We'd just all, just once, love to see him absolutely frigging NAIL a top-level WR pick and grab the next great Patriots' franchise WR with a 1st or 2nd round pick and see that guy go to pro bowls and be on all-pro teams for years.