On Tuesday, upon hearing Laurence Maroney had been traded, I took my usual positive spin to the transaction by tweeting that the Patriots now had seven picks in the first four rounds of the 2011 draft. I characterized this wealth of picks as “scary”.
The Patriots have had back to back excellent drafts, and another year of multiple high picks makes the odds pretty good that they will continue to add even more young talent to a team that is quickly becoming recognized as one of the youngest and most talented in the NFL.
To my surprise Tim Graham, the ESPN beat writer for the AFC East, tweeted back at me something to the effect of “maybe they’ll draft another Laurence Maroney”.
Thus started a twitter debate of epic proportions. On and on it went for over an hour, to the delight of many “twit-nesses”, as we argued about the Patriots draft philosophy. Credit to Tim, who continued to fire back at a mere Pats fan-blogger like myself.
It’s hard to make a quality argument 140 characters at a time, though I think I did a pretty good job sticking to my guns, so I felt this was worthy of an expanded analysis. Plus I’ve heard Felger/Mazz, aka the Abandon Hope All Ye Who Listen Show, were railing against the Pats for their ‘06/’07/’08 drafts today.
So let’s set aside our fan loyalty and look at the NFL draft as rational business people and figure out if the Patriots really are the bad drafters the “pundits” would have you believe they are…