Pro Football Weekly and Riddell present ...
2002 NFL draft

Patriots pick a puzzler

Graham will be a great TE, but New England may have reached a bit

By Andy Hanacek, Associate editor
April 20, 2002

Now, don’t get me wrong here. Graham is a solid pick at No. 21 overall. He’s definitely got the talent to be a top-25 pick. But not in this situation. If the Patriots were originally sitting at 21 and Graham was available, I would say this was a good pick. But the Patriots could have gotten a solid tight end at No. 32, as the TE position is quite deep this year.

Graham fits the Patriots’ mold as a guy who won’t make waves. He’ll be able to step right in and probably start in the Patriots’ offense. It’s a great pick for that reason, but I don’t agree with it because of the signings of Cam Cleeland and Christian Fauria. Unless the Patriots plan on running a revolutionary three-TE set of some sort or converting one of these guys to an H-back, than they’ve just wasted money and/or a draft pick.

There are other areas of need that the Patriots could have addressed by trading up to No. 21. They could have added some much-needed youth in the LB corps by taking Northwestern LB Napoleon Harris, or drafted Miami (Fla.) S Edward Reed in case free-agent addition Rob Kelly doesn’t pan out after missing a year of football. They even could have added further depth in the receiving corps, though they probably wouldn’t want Pittsburgh WR Antonio Bryant, who seems to have the potential to be another Terry Glenn. The point is, I think there were numerous better routes the Patriots could have taken here.

In the end, I think the Patriots would have been better served sitting tight at 32^nd and selecting the best available player there. They need youth in a lot of areas and could have gotten a very solid player at that point.

Graham will make an impact, there’s no doubt about that. He could even be the next Ben Coates for New England. Offensive coordinator Charlie Weis will put him to work in the passing game, which will help young QB Tom Brady tremendously, as Jermaine Wiggins did in the playoffs last year.

But what do you do with Cleeland and Fauria? The Patriots aren’t going to use every tight end on their roster to their fullest extent. As much as they want a pass-catching tight end, they haven’t thrown to the tight ends much since the days of Coates.

Now, instead of having a logjam at quarterback only (with Brady and Drew Bledsoe), they have a logjam at tight end. Unless they have something up their sleeves, I think the Patriots may have stretched a bit too far on this pick.

The Archives
2001 - 2002 Season