Pat Patriot
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- Mar 19, 2019
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When the Patriots acquired defensive end Michael Bennett last month, they did so by trading their 2020 fifth-round pick to the Eagles for Bennett and a 2020 seventh-round pick. That’s the kind of move the Patriots love.
In fact, since 2014 the Patriots have made 14 trades that involved a veteran player switching teams for swap of draft picks within two rounds of each other, according to the Boston Herald. That’s by far the most such trades in the NFL; no other team has even made seven such trades.
In addition to Bennett, the Patriots acquired Kyle Van Noy and Jason McCourty, two key players on their defense, that way. Last year the Patriots acquired offensive tackle Trent Brown in such a trade, they got a good year out of him and this year he left for free agency, getting a big contract from the Raiders that will net the Patriots a third-round compensatory pick next year.
Bill Belichick understands that the difference in talent between a fifth-round pick and a seventh-round pick isn’t much, so he doesn’t mind moving down on the third day of the draft if he can pick up a veteran player in the process. Those types of trades are one of the reasons the Patriots manage to stay on top of the NFL, year after year.