The Patriots Trade Duke Dawson. Let the 'Belichick Can't Draft' Talk Begin!

And so the Duke Dawson era is over in New England. And I’ll admit this one stings a little. For personal reasons, since he was yet another in a long series of Patriots draft picks The Belichick Whisperer correctly nailed:

Who the Patriots Will Draft: Duke Dawson. I’ve seen mocks where he goes as high as 48, but as low as 98. If teams pass on him due to his size and the fact he’s not a true outside the numbers corner, I can definitely see the Pats moving around the Day 2 draft board to grab him. In spite of my Pennywise-level fear of guys from U. of Florida, he’ll fit in perfectly as a slot corner and the Robber role, as well as become a core-4 special teamer from Day One. Duke Dawson is the pick.

And also for the obvious reason that moving up 30ish picks at the back end of next year’s draft hardly qualifies as good value for a guy you used the 56th pick on last year. Frankly if he was any other kind of asset besides a living being, you’d let the insurance company declare him a total loss and collect the money. But that’s what the going return is for a high 2nd rounder who never saw the field for you, drew a DPI, a hold or an illegal contact seemingly every drive of the preseason games he was in and had negative infinity chance of cracking the 53-man.

But what’s worst about this is that it’s already subjecting us to the anti-Belichick jihadists’ favorite trope: That GM Bill can’t draft. Specifically, in the 2nd round. Here’s his complete history of Round 2 picks in New England:

And by any objective standards, there are some major whiffs in there among those 25 names. Some that I loved, like Darius Butler, whom I also predicted they’d take and was one of the most athletic human beings I’ve ever seen in person, but who couldn’t get his head around on a pass if he was a starving man and the ball was a Hot Pocket. Some I hated at the time, like Ron Brace. And a few I swear I had never heard of, like Tavon Wilson.

As failed picks go, Ras-I Dowling will always stand alone, since he was the first pick pf Day 2 and therefore Belichick probably fielded a hundred trade offers and went with the guy who also couldn’t ever get on the field. But in an among all these names I’ve just mentioned not working out is a point the outraged know-it-alls and indignant sports radio doofuses miss. Or consciously choose to ignore.

Of course the Patriots personnel staff doesn’t intentionally miss on these guys. They want them all to be the next Drew Brees or Mike Singletary or Thurman Thomas. But they load up on these picks in the 2nd and 3rd sweet spot of the draft and take chances because they can afford to. Because when you reach and miss, there are no long term consequences. A player isn’t as good as you hoped he’d be. You trade or release him. You eat pocket change in cap space. And you move on with no effects going forward.

Consider Ras-I[R] Dowling. He was a de facto 1st rounder, but in real facts he wasn’t. In his first season of failure, they went to the Super Bowl. In his fourth season of futility, they won it with Darrelle Revis, Brandon Browner, and a UDFA named Malcolm Butler. It would’ve been super swell if he was playing 60 snaps and locking down receivers instead of home on his Lay-Z-Boy. But this team is built on such risks. They can take the L, without it being a huge setback. And for every couple of Dowlings or Dawsons, if they nail a Matt Light, Deion Branch, Sebastian Vollmer, Pat Chung, Rob Gronkowski, Shane Vereen, Jamie Collins or Jimmy Garoppolo, the risk/reward is worth it.

Honestly, it’s the nature of drafting between the late 1st, where they’ve been practically every year for 20 drafts, and the end of the 3rd. There are failed picks everywhere, for every team. It’s just easier to be a failure in New England because you’re always competing against a deep roster, loaded with their successful later picks and UDFAs. A guy like Dawson busting out sounds like a failure, and to an extent it is. But it’s also a reflection of the fact he’s not as good as JC Jackson (undrafted), Jason McCourty (free agent) or Keion Crossen (7-243rd in 2018). If he stays on with Denver or has a decent career elsewhere, to me that’s more of an indictment of the talent level of those other rosters than it is GM Belichick’s inability to draft.

Besides, there are other ways to turn those picks into assets. And he’s as good as anyone in the business of doing just that:

Again, this is how the Patriots Dynasty is built. Misses like Dawson are ground up, made into mortar and hold the stones of this castle together. We can hope they never fail on another one and that Joejuan Williams becomes the Mike Haynes of the 21st century. But I wouldn’t change a thing about how the process. Except I’d never draft a Florida Gator ever again. That’s a losing proposition every time it’s tried.