The New England Patriots Were Wheeling and Dealing During The 2009 NFL Draft
April 28, 2009 – 7:15 am by Michael Bean
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you have to hand it to the Patriots. They usually take care of business in a big way during each year’s NFL Draft. This year was no different. The Patriots pulled off a whirlwind of trades this past weekend that stockpiled them with picks in not only this year’s draft, but in next year’s as well. Bill Belichick, who takes a big role in the draft process alongside owner Robert Kraft and new GM Nick Caserio, joined WEEI on Monday to talk about the draft. First though, the Patriots’ haul.
- 2nd Round (32nd overall): Patrick Chung, SS – Oregon
- 2nd Round (40th overall): Ron Brace, DT – Boston College
- 2nd Round (41st overall): Darius Butler, CB – Connecticut
- 2nd Round (58th overall): Sebastian Vollmer, OL – Houston
- 3rd Round (83rd overall): Brandon Tate, WR – North Carolina
- 3rd Round (97th overall): Tyrone McKenzie, OLB – South Florida
- 4th Round (123rd overall): Rich Ohrnberger, OG – Penn State
- 5th Round (170th overall): George Bussey, OT – Louisville
- 6th Round (198th overall): Jake Ingram, LS – Hawaii
- 6th Round (207th overall): Myron Pryor, DT – Kentucky
- 7th Round (232nd overall): Julian Edelman, QB/WR – Kent State
- 7th Round (234th overall): Darryl Richard, DT – Georgia Tech
On his general strategy and philosophy heading into the draft each year:
“You kind of go into the draft with a general sense of a game plan, where you’d like to be at different points in the draft. You’re not talking about the same players in the 4th round that you’re talking about in the 1st round. I think you try to go into the draft looking at the first 2 rounds and trying to maximize your opportunities there and you kind of try to recalculate the board after that 2nd round is over, heading into the 2nd day and take your new game plan from there based on what’s on the board and maybe how your team has changed after the 1st day.”
On trading draft picks:
“What you’re trying to do is maximize the value of your pick. If you take one, you pass up not one but a lot of others before you get to pick again. We felt that the trade down was good value, that we weren’t giving up value for our pick…We just felt like it was good value and that’s why we did it. It wasn’t a question of there wasn’t anyone up there; there were plenty of players up there, we were just trying to get the most of our chances.”
On the rumor that they were trying to trade with Jacksonville for the 8th pick:
“No way. With Jacksonville, as we all know, they’ve been trying to trade out of that spot since six weeks before the draft and I think everybody in the league knew that. I’m sure they called everybody that was behind them and saying, “Would you be interested in trading?“ and so on and so forth… They were very anxious for anyone in the league to make them an offer so they could get a sense of what they could get for that pick and where they could move to, and that was much more the nature of the conversation. I would venture to say they initiated every call; they certainly initiated calls with us.”
On 3rd round pick, Brandon Tate:
“Brandon Tate is I think pretty clearly a 1st round level player talent-wise. We feel like his medical situation is eventually going to be resolved. He doesn’t have any kind of career-threatening injury or anything like that. It’s a serious injury but it’s one that a lot of players both on our team and throughout the league have come back from.“
Listen to Bill Belichick on WEEI in Boston with the Big Show
Tags: 2009 NFL Draft Grades, Bill Belichick, New England Patriots, NFL Draft 2009, NFL Draft Grades, Robert Chung, WEEI, who had the best NFL Draft
