Mike Reiss: How the Patriots’ draft strategy shifts under new regime
During this morning’s Toucher & Hardy Radio program, Wallach pointed out a significant change in the Patriots’ draft approach compared to Bill Belichick’s past strategies, noting Elliot Wolfe’s more cautious approach of avoiding risky picks and opting for consistent selections throughout the draft. Mike Reiss echoed this observation, acknowledging the shift in strategy towards a more decisive plan, especially in addressing offensive weaknesses. He mentioned the deliberate focus on offensive players in this year’s draft as indicative of a new direction for the Patriots under the new regime.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Wallach: Overall, looking at this draft, it seems to me a radical departure from what we’ve been used to from Bill Belichick, who would go wildly off the board at any time drafting kickers and punters. It just seemed like for his first time, Elliot Wolfe chose to stay put and not go for the home run, consistently hitting singles from top to bottom.
Mike Reiss: Jon, I think it’s such a good point. And I was thinking about that when the punter from Iowa went off the board; I was like, oh, I’m living in a different world now. I don’t think I have to worry about a special teams player getting drafted here. And there was one trade, right? We used to have so many more trades, so I think it was reflective of the new regime and that they went into this draft with a decisive plan; like we are deficient on offense. We’re going to use seven of our eight picks on offense. Will it work out? We’ll see. But I think from a big picture standpoint, the idea that they had a plan and they followed through with it, stood out to me as sort of, okay, this is the way this new regime is going to go about it.
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NICK GEMELLI is a Producer on Toucher & Hardy, weekday mornings 6-10AM on 985 The Sports Hub. He is also a contributor on 985thesportshub.com. Follow Nick on X (formerly Twitter) at @NickGemelli.
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