Pipe Down If You're Not A Professional Scout Working For An NFL Team, When It Comes To Cole Strange And How The Patriots Scouted Him.

People forget that draft boards are different. They forget that people scouts have different things they look for. They forget that people have biases that effect how they see things. While there are some boards that had Cole Strange as a day two pick, some boards had him as a day three pick. However, those who had him going on day two could not agree as to where on day two. 

A quick Google search gave me eight writers, who thought he was a day two pick including people who work for CBS, USA Today, and Patspalpit. Someone who makes a living off writing for sports wrote that it was possible for Strange to go in round one but everyone thought he was drafted too high right? Not according to Uriel Klien. 

Uriel Klien wrote, "I think he deserves consideration even in the top half of the 1st round, even if he won’t be drafted until Day 2."

So why did I bring this up? Because people are knocking what Bill Belichick had to say. Bill got asked if Strange would've been his pick at 21 if they had not traded down. 

Belichick replied, “Probably a good chance it would have been him. Glad Cole was there when we picked and I feel like we made the best decision that we could at 21.”

Of course because of Strange being from a smaller school people had the small school biases against Strange, keeping him as a late day two to a mid day three prospect. So someone asked Bill if he really thought Strange would not of been there when the Patriots picked at 54 (And I am sure there were some who would've said saturday night if allowed).

Belichick replied, “He wouldn’t have lasted much longer.”

The rest of Belichick's interview after day one was a bunch of walking in circles. 

I'm going to share one top 200 board from April 5th done on the Draft Network's website. This is just to show that not every board is the same. Remember, Cole Strange is at least a day three pick according to many, so keep an eye out for him. Also look to see if anyone else is missing.

Receivers

Tackles

Edge Rushers

Corners

Quarterbacks (only 2? Where's Willis and Pickett?)

Tight Ends

Interior Defensive Line

Interior Offensive Linemen

Running Back

Linebackers

Safeties and 6 Long Snappers (last six)

Punter

This board has only two quarterbacks and they're not Pickett or Strong. It has Wan'Dale Robinson, Justyn Ross, and Romeo Doubs ahead of Skyy Moore. It had Roger McCreary as the third best corner in the draft. And it didn't even have Cole Strange listed as a prospect. And I can assure you it wasn't because he's not good but instead because the person who made the board never heard of Strange until last night.

The point of this is not everyone's boards are the same. A friend of mine had Booth better than McCreary. Another thought Booth was light years ahead of Elam. When Buffalo picked Elam over Booth, I was like good pick and got told it was a "reach." Why? Personal bias and if that's what they think, it's fine.

The comments from almost everyone over that pick are insane. Why are people upset that Cole Strange went at 29? Personal bias. People as a group made up their minds that their rankings were correct, looked for people who agreed with them and used those people as vindication for their reactions. The funny thing is the same people are bitching about Belichick being surrounded by yes men. Now, I'm not trying to call out my friends but Pats nation and the media because of all the toxicity.

Hell, I remember watching some of the mock drafts and people including Evan Lazar (when looking at fan boards) didn't want to look at other mock draft sites due to how they ranked players. Idk how many times I heard people say other draft simulators don't rank people correctly. What they were really saying is, "they don't place the same value on guys as I do, so they're wrong and I'm right. So I'm not using them" People surrounded themselves with mock drafts that were "yes men". The Patriots don't care about consensus picks, they rarely do.

Here is a mock draft from the simulator almost everyone was relying on (PFF) because it was the most realistic according to pretty much everyone.

When this simulators trade system got called out as broken or unrealistic. Locked on Patriots supported the trade part of the simulator claiming there was truth to its trade system due to it's algorithm and inferring that the trades were realistic. Nothing in the mock draft above was forced, so if this mock draft was possible it had to be less than a 1% chance. I mean it has the league giving Belichick 11 top 100 picks and all the Pats basically did was trade down from 21.

If people want they can come up with reasons why it makes sense for the Patriots to draft Strange at 29. Here's a few:

1) He was mis-scouted by those outside of the team and is that good.

2) The Patriots are planning to run an spread zone scheme RPOs 

3) Ball control offense - The longer the Patriots have the ball, the less time Josh Allen has to hurt them.

I am sure people can come up with more. Now let's run off the he was mis-scouted. Let's say he's as good as Zion Johnson, Kenyon Green, or Tyler Lindenbaum, would people be upset if one of those three were drafted at 29? It was a question I heard last night, If you wouldn't be upset about one of those guys, then there's no reason to be upset about Cole Strange going at 29.