Pat's Drafting Success 2000-2008

A poster yesterday at Football Outsiders got the hamster rolling in my head, in making a comment about the Patriots "never missing on a top ten draft pick". Notwithstanding that the Pats have only picked in the top ten twice under Bill Belichick (Seymour in 2001 and Mayo in 2008), the comment got me thinking.

I believe it was in an earlier comment that I laid out my general thoughts on draft success. As a quick recap, here is what I remember them as;

1) If a team never misses on their first round picks, they will be a perennial playoff team. The team that springs to mind is the Baltimore Ravens of the last fifteen years. And yes, I know they won a Super Bowl, but we are making generalizations here.
2) If a team wants to get to the next level, they need to acquire a starter from each draft in the later rounds. In this case, I think of the Colts, who pair an other-worldly offense with a defense that seems to pluck guys from the depths of the draft every season.
3) To get to the cream of the crop, say a five-year run of dominance, a team needs to find at least one starter in the later rounds, and more importantly, a few Pro Bowlers have to be dug out of the later rounds. The Patriots of 2001-2007 spring most to mind in this category.

To that end, I checked Pro Football Reference's draft database, and looked at the Pats drafting success under Bill Belichick. Here is a breakdown of AVERAGE Annual Value (a PPR rating system used to compare players across history), by draft year;

2000 24.4
2001 25.1
2002 18.3
2003 36.3
2004 17.0
2005 34.1
2006 19.0
2007 6.7
2008 12.5

The 2000 draft is discolored by the fact that Tom Brady alone produced 104 career AV out of a total draft class of 159. Patrick Pass, picked in the 7th round, contributed 15 AV over a seven year Patriots career. 2001 brought Richard Seymour and Matt Light, starters from day one that contributed greatly to the Pats 2001 Super Bowl victory. These two combine for 151 out of 164 total AV for the 2001 draft. 2002 brought Daniel Graham (1st), Deion Branch (2nd), Jarvis Green (4th) and David Givens (7th), who contributed 32, 38, 22 & 28 AV respectively, as well as winning a Super Bowl MVP in Branch. The 2003 draft is, in my opinion, the cream of the crop, returning Ty Warren (1st), Eugene Wilson (2nd), Asante Samuel (4th), Dan Koppen (5th) and Tully Banta-Cain (7th), with career AVs of 44, 29, 55, 48 and 19 respectively. All of these players, with the possible exception of TBC, were key contributors in the 2003 Super Bowl. And TBC has been the Pats best pass-rusher in his second go-round with the team.
The 2004 draft was the worst draft of the Pats dynasty, returning only Vince Wilfork and Ben Watson, both 1st round picks. Not that they were not great (in Wilfork's case) or good (in Watson's case), but there were no late round wins. Wilfork and Watson contributed 46 and 29 AV respectively in their Pats careers.
The 2005 draft could also vie with 2003 for the best draft class of the decade, returning Logan Mankins (1st), Ellis Hobbs (3rd), Nick Kaczur (3rd), James Sanders (4th) and Matt Cassel (7th). These players brought 46, 25, 35, 19 and 25 AV respectively, including Cassel's saving of the Pat's season when Tom Brady was injured in week 1 of the 2008 season.
The drafting began to go downhill in 2006, with only Laurence Maroney (1st) and Stephen Gostkowski (4th) starting for the Pats. 2007 brought only Brandon Meriweather in the 1st, and 8 misses in rounds 4-7. 2008 is too early to judge, although Jerod Mayo looks very good, he stands as the only starter from that class as well.

You can trace, by draft success, the Pats "struggles" of the last three seasons. Having an elite quarterback, of Tom Brady's caliber, probably guarantees you an 8 win season, but the defensive core got old from 2005-2008, and only a second cornerback and third safety were added to the mix.

The early returns on the 2009 draft are promising, as Patrick Chung has played pretty well so far in 2010, Sebastian Vollmer has played solid for a season and a quarter, Brandon Tate has a chance at the #3 WR role and Julian Edelman looks like he could eventually grow into another Pats slot-success story. The jury is still out on other picks from 2009, like Darius Butler, Ron Brace and Tyrone McKenzie. If the Pats are to prolong their window beyond 2011, these young players will have to continue to develop.