People are Talking: Patrick Willis, ILB, Mississippi

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Year: Senior Height: 6′1 Weight:242 40 Time: 4.51 Stats: NCAA

BSMW GAME DAY BOARD (as of 4/15/07) Round: 1st Rank: 12 Median Draft Position: 12.0 (10 drafts) Lo: 9 Hi: 24 Most Frequent Mock Selection: 12 (Bills - 5 mocks)

BSMW SUMMARY (as of 3/31/07)

Everyone seems to agree; Willis has the right mix of brawn and brains as the top inside linebacker prospect in the draft. Size, athleticism, production and character at a position of great need for the Patriots. What’s not to like? That’s just the problem - Willis has risen steadily up draft boards since February. Most mocks see him going somewhere between picks 11 and 14. Yet Mel Kiper and DJ Boyer remain steadfast in the belief that Willis will remain on the board until the Patriots pick at 24. Majority rules, guys - he may have ascended too high to be a realistic get for New England. The Patriots have scheduled a visit to Foxboro for Willis, and perhaps the Pats will decide then if he’s the type of prospect they want to trade up for.

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People Are Talking: Dwayne Bowe, WR, LSU

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Year: Senior Height: 6’2 Weight: 221
40 Time: 4.51 Stats: NCAA

BSMW GAME DAY BOARD (as of 4/15/07) - Round: 1st Rank: 25 Median Draft Position: 23.0 (9 drafts) Lo: 19 Hi: 31 Most Frequent Mock Selection: 23 (Kansas City - 2 mocks)

BSMW SUMMARY (as of 3/31/07)

Check out the profiles below – there’s a lot to like about the big, physical, athletic LSU receiver, but his apparent rawness as a receiver – and the allegedly cryptic New England passing offense - gives pause. It seems the last thing the Patriots need is another young receiver who is not producing but simply trying to learn the ropes. Still, the Pats worked him out in March.

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People Are Talking: Daymeion Hughes, CB, California

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Year:Senior Height:5′10 Weight:190 40 Time:4.65 Stats: NCAA

BSMW GAME DAY BOARD (as of 4/15/07) Round: 2nd/3rd Rank: 80 Median Draft Position: 639.0 (5 drafts) Lo: 34 Hi: 64 Most Frequest Mock Selection: 64 (Tampa - @ mocks)

BSMW SUMMARY (as of 3/30/07)

Nobody’s fallen harder on the ol’ BSMW Big Board than Hughes, who dropped from 27th on our first board to 80th as we speak. Straight away there were questions about Hughes throughout the profiles. He had a productive career at Cal, piling up tackles and interceptions over his junior and senior seasons. Quick, smooth, good instincts for the ball, proficient in zone coverage. But the profiles question whether he has the speed to run with receivers or the stature to press the line of scrimmage. The profiles say he gambles too much and can’t close fast enough to make up for those mistakes. The Patriots may disagree: Mike Reiss of the Globe reports that Hughes will visit Foxboro as one of 30 on-site visits that the team will be allowed. Hughes could be lingering in that second round area that I can’t help but feel the Patriots will somehow wind up in.

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People Are Talking: Anthony Spencer, DE-LB, Purdue

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Year: Senior Height: 6′2 Weight: 261 40 Time: 4.70 Stats: NCAA

BSMW GAME DAY BOARD(as of 4/15/07) Round: 1st Rank: 30 Median Draft Position: 28.0 (7 drafts) Lo: 21 Hi: 32 Most Frequest Mock Selection: 32 (2 - Indy)

BSMW SUMMARY (as of 3/30/07)

The word on the Purdue pass rusher is that he may have the tools to transition to an outside linebacker spot, which may make him a logical fit for New England. There appears to be some debate as to whether Spencer is big enough to play end, or athletic enough to play linebacker. But everyone seems to agree he is a force in the passing game, and may be positioned as a McGinest-style edge rushing linebacker. Patriots scouts had a private workout with Spencer in March, and he is one of 30 potential draftees that will be permitted to visit with Patriots brass in Foxboro. He looks almost certain to be a late first round pick, and could very well be on the New England roster come September.

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Is There a Draft in Here?

By Scott Benson
scott@bostonsportsmedia.com

It’s all part of God’s Plan, I suppose, that as soon as one football season ends, another one begins.

Thanks to the NFL Draft, there’s no need to linger in the hazy aftermath of a failed campaign; by the next morning, you can be looking forward, towards the next horizon, echoing visionaries like Robert Kennedy and Gary Tanguay as you plaintively ask, “why…….NOT?”

That’s what this annual Draft Season has come to represent for me, anyway, especially in the Internet Age. Your team just suffered - and I’m speaking hypothetically here - the worst collapse in AFC Championship Game history ? Don’t wallow in it, my friend. It’s time to move on. Let me tell you about this young linebacker from Mississippi. He’s going to be GREAT. If he falls to the Pats this April, LOOK OUT.

And so on. Cripes, even when the Patriots win, I’m all over the Draft by Tuesday. In every case, hope springs eternal. What’s wrong with that?

So we here at BSMW Patriots Game Day thought we’d try to chronicle the next nine weeks leading up to the draft, which will take place in New York over the weekend of April 28-29. We’ll focus on a few specific areas:

- The Usual Suspects: One of the most pointless yet most enjoyable traditions of the Christmas in April season is the The Parade of the Mock Drafts. We’ll track a handful of the better ones and look further into the players that are being picked for the Pats. Especially early in the process, there’ll be a top-heavy focus on just the two first round picks. But as the mocks expand, so will we.

- The Others: They may not be getting selected by the mocks, but as we know too well, that doesn’t mean the Patriots won’t pick ‘em. We’ll try to learn more about other prospects that could be available when the Pats make their early selections.

- People Are Talking: We love to comb the websites for obscure reports of Patriots scouts doting on a particular player. It may not give us any insight as to who the Patriots will draft, but the positions of the players they’re talking to may. A preponderence of one or two positions may give us a heads-up come the last weekend in April. We’re going to gather up as many of these as we can find - especially this week, as the Combine begins - and pass along regular updates.

Our first offering can be found below. But look, don’t ask us what it is, or what it does, because to be honest, we don’t know. It might speak to the ‘Usual Suspects’ item above, but if you feel strongly otherwise, we’ll probably ditch that theory too. Anyway, it’s a compendium of a half-dozen of the better mock drafts, which we’ve mashed together to develop our own Two Round Draft Board. It’s based on a Secret Formula, just like Coke.

Not really. In short, the MDP is the Median Draft Position, or the midpoint of the combined mock selections. The next column indicates how many mock drafts in which the player has been selected. The next two numbers are the low and high mock selections. MFDP is not what you think, Fans of Shaft - ‘MF’ stands for ‘most frequent’, meaning the selection (if any) where the player is most commonly taken. The next column shows how often, and the team that currently owns that selection is noted next.

Lastly, the players in red are the ones the mocks now favor for the Pats, or as we’ll come to know them, the Usual Suspects. Leading the list this time are Purdue DE/LB Anthony Spencer and Cal CB Daymeion Hughes, the current mock favorites for the two first round picks.

A word about the mocks - we’ve started with six of the more accurate mockers (somebody actually kept track of that), namely Draft Countdown (DC), Rob’s Scouting (RS), Mel Kiper (MK), NFL Draft Scout (DSC), Draft Stock (DST) and Football.com(F.COM). The heights, weights and 40’s we got from scout.com. We may expand this to include other top ten mocks later on. Anyway, we plan on updating this often and posting the most recent results here.

Final point - we invite any and all Pats Fans to e-mail us their draft thoughts and suggestions whenever the mood strikes. The hot stove isn’t any fun if you’re the only one sitting around it. Pull up a chair.

Here’s our first draft board.

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In Your FACE, Gladys Kravitz

by Scott Benson
scott@bostonsportsmedia.com

How’s your off-season goin’?

Mine got a little better yesterday thanks to my friend Bruce Allen and what it perhaps the best piece of writing he has ever done for our mothership, the Boston Sports Media Watch.

I’m mentioning it here because Bruce has masterfully - and authoritatively - responded to a particularly ugly rumor that has circulated for the past several months, which happens to involve a guy who’s pretty important to Patriots fans.

The Boston Herald - and their media brethren that took their word for it - can go get its effin’ shinebox. As can you others who thought the Herald (and others) was ‘reporting’ and not simply crawling in the gutter as usual. You thought it was pretty much fact? Think again.

Congratulations on a job well done, Bruce. And thanks.

Patriots Franchise Samuel

By Bruce Allen

bruce@bostonsportsmedia.com

Mike Reiss was beaten to a Patriots scoop for the first time in recent memory, as Adam Schefter of NFL Network reported early this evening that the Patriots had designated cornerback Asante Samuel with the franchise tag.

Reiss however did predict yesterday that this would happen, and had solid reasons for his prediction, which turned out to be true.

Reiss and Albert Breer have since each posted three entries on their blogs about the move, which will pay Samuel $7.79 million for this season. Reiss did get reaction from Samuel’s agent, Alonzo Shavers, who was positive about the move, stating that they have no intention of holding Samuel out of camp and that this is the first step in the process of moving towards a long term deal.

It should be reassuring that it appears that Samuel will likely be in the fold for another season, unless the Patriots decide to trade him, as they did with Tebucky Jones a few years back. Either the Patriots will have him on the roster, or they will get something for him.

We’ve been busy putting some stuff together on the draft, and hope to have something for you on that topic next week sometime. In the meantime, we’ll keep you posted on any further thoughts or news regarding the Patriots.

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