Leave it to Bill Belichick to shock everyone in Round 1 and then keep the surprises coming through the rest of the draft… but not necessarily in a good way. In the 2nd round, Belichick selected safety Tavon Wilson out of Illinois. Who? This one had even Mel Kiper, Jr. flipping through his draft book. This kid was expected to go in the 6th round at the absolute earliest and possibly not even get drafted. Is that what concerned people about this pick? Not so much. The issue was when the Pats selected him. Spending a 2nd round pick on a player with 6th round (or worse) talent is a terrible value. Belichick could have selected another (better) player, or traded the pick, and still grabbed Wilson 4 rounds later. Hence the backlash.
Belichick’s next surprise was taking a former Rugby player *slash* Ohio State special teams standout, Nate Ebner. Ebner didn’t even play football until he got to college. He was a rugby player on the US national team (apparently they have one). He was even named MVP twice. He was a walk on at Ohio State and stuck, making his mark on special teams. So, to sum up, Belichick selected an ex-rugby player with practically no football experience who plays nothing but special teams, which is at most 10% of a game. Awesome.
Here’s the thing, these aren’t bad picks necessarily. Belichick is the king of finding players off the scrap heap and training them up into a specialized role. I’m sure he will do it again with these two. It’s just how he went about doing it. He likely could have picked up both of these guys after the draft, judging by how other teams rated them. Instead, he stuck to his guns, believed in his own rankings, and drafted them when he thought they were the correct selections, regardless of differing valuations and points of view. He’s getting blasted now but let’s see what people are saying next Super Bowl Sunday.
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