By now everyone is aware of the Patriots' recent struggles in the draft, but it's hard to peg an exact reason why.
Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated's MMQB took a deep dive into the Patriots' issues of late and came away with a few interesting nuggets.
One of the biggest misses recently was selecting N'Keal Harry in the first round last year over other receivers like Deebo Samuel, A.J. Brown, D.K. Metcalf, etc.
According to Breer, Harry "crushed" his in-house visit with the team and got a good review from ex-Arizona State coach Todd Graham, so the team selected him in Round 1 despite warning signs from scouts.
Breer adds Harry isn't the only player selected where Belichick may have been swayed too much by a college coach who he's friendly with. Anfernee Jennings, who played for Nick Saban, is another.
"Which makes it fair to question if he’s leaned too much on his college coaching friends and his personal experience with prospects, and too little on the work of his scouts," Breer wrote.
The biggest takeaway from the piece is the Patriots are severely lacking talent and over the years Tom Brady was able to make up for a lot of areas where the roster fell short.
“They’re just devoid of talent,” an NFC personnel director said. “It’s a bunch of specialty guys that fit certain scenarios, and those guys are fine, but they don’t have line-up-and-kick-your-ass football players. [Stephon] Gilmore’s a real guy. [Joe] Thuney’s a real guy. I like J.C. Jackson. But other than that, I don’t know who we’re really talking about."