What's Method To Pats Trade Madness?

They are the NFL's pack rats. Compulsive hoarders. The New England Patriots are forever dropping out of their draft positions and collecting more picks for ... well, someday. Might be today. Might be next year. Might get traded again the next year for a better deal in the following year. 

The time is coming (and maybe it already has) where Bill Belichick is going to flip a seventh-rounder into a first-rounder by just trading ahead and ahead and ahead.

Why don't they just take the players?

1) They don't have enough holes. All the stockpiling from previous years puts them in a spot where they simply can't bring in 11 rookies and have them make the team. In this draft, they have three compensatory picks in the third, fifth and sixth rounds. Those picks can't be dealt so that's three guys they had to bring in.

2) The "value" of the best player on the board when their turn comes doesn't match with the spot. For instance, if they have the 20th pick and, after research, they establish the player they like will probably be on the board for the next 15 picks, they find the team urgent to get that 20th pick and clean up a little bit with an extra pick.

One key to this, the Patriots are an established "program." Even though the Patriots have plenty of misses on the books from the past few years, they've had enough draft success to gain the benefit of the doubt. Love him or loathe him, you have to defer to Bill Belichick's football acumen if you're a fan, media member or rival coach or organization.