Richard Hill's Countdown To The Draft: Prospect Profiles

Although I’m not sure there’s a comprehensive list of guys who did come in – the Pats are pretty secretive about who they bring into Foxboro, let alone what they have the players doing in them (unless it’s Tim Tebow).

The second thing to consider is that it’s not necessarily an indication of who they’re drafting or even who they’re interested in drafting per se – the Pats drafted Logan Mankins far higher than the mock draftniks had him, and the Pats did it without actually bringing him to Foxboro for a visit. Whether that was a masterstroke of strategy on their part (pretending to show no interest so they can snag him) or what, it’s anyone’s guess.

I wonder how much of it is strategy and smoke-and-mirrors. For instance, apparently the Pats question Odrick’s ability to switch into a 5-technique DE, but they also haven’t supposedly brought him into Foxboro to look at him closely. So either you could surmise that they don’t have a lot of interest in him, or (like Mankins) they like him a lot for the first-round pick, and are trying to disguise it. The latter (in some ways) actually makes more sense – the Jets are another team that surely has designs on Odrick, so at the very least you want to kick his tyres just to see what your rival may well purchase in order to figure out ways to beat him.

there was a bit of selfishness involved. I wanted to prep for the Pats Pulpit Mock Draft coming up, and putting all of Rich’s research into one post made it easier for me.