Sidelines: With Patriots’ first-round pick, ‘In Bill We Trust’ faces another test

Cole Strange of Tennessee-Chattanooga runs through drills during practice for the Senior Bowl on Feb. 2. Butch Dill/Associated Press

When the Patriots logo at the bottom of the screen changed to Kansas City’s for the 21st selection of the NFL Draft on Thursday night, I just shook my head and chuckled.

Of course they traded down, I thought. All these areas on the team that need to be fixed, all these old and slow players that need to be replaced, of course that’s what they did. How Patriots is that? How Bill Belichick is that?

Just watch, I thought. They probably won’t pick anyone in the first round at all.

Well. They did.

They took Cole Strange, a guard out of Chattanooga, which plays not in the FBS with Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia, but the FCS with the likes of Montana and Bethune-Cookman and South Dakota State. If you hadn’t heard of Cole Strange, you’re not alone. Few had. It was the biggest “wait, what?” of the first round. Even NFL executives who knew the name expected to hear it called in the later rounds on Friday or Saturday.

And Bill Belichick, whose team was last seen getting embarrassed on the national stage in the playoffs, made the reachiest of reaches and picked it on Thursday.

Who knows if Strange can play or if he can’t. Every draft guru pretends to know exactly how these college players will transition to the pro game, but nobody really does. Cole Strange could be John Hannah for all we know. It could be nothing but Pro Bowls, All-Pros and Canton from here.

But at a glance, and considering the scouting reports that had him pegged for far later in the draft, this feels like the other times Belichick has tried to be the smartest person in the room and stray as far from conventional wisdom as he possibly could — sometimes with poor results.

It felt like when he took safety Tavon Wilson, who had only earned Big Ten honorable mention status at Illinois, in the second round in 2012. Or when he grabbed Stanford safety Jordan Richards, projected to be a fifth- to seventh-round pick, in the second round in 2015. Some of the earlier-than-expected picks — Devin McCourty in 2010, for instance — have worked. But it’s still a shaky way to go about spending your first-round choice.

Which brings up the real point, and why this selection felt as much like an attempt to troll Patriots fans as improve the team they root for. Even if Strange works out, he’s still a player the consensus says they didn’t need to leap at No. 29 to get. The Patriots went into Friday also holding picks at No. 54 in the second round and Nos. 85 and 94 in the third, plus two picks in the fourth round. They could have gotten the speed at linebacker or athleticism at wide receiver or talent in the secondary that they desperately, desperately need, and still had all the draft capital needed to move around the board if they were sold on taking Strange.

A video circulated on Twitter after the Patriots took Strange of the Los Angeles Rams’ brass, including head coach Sean McVay, breaking out laughing when they heard he had been taken in the first round. McVay said he was hoping Strange would be around for them at pick 104. Not 34, but 104.

Bad player? Time will tell. Reach pick? Certainly seems so.

And now the mantra of “In Bill We Trust,” and just closing your eyes and trusting that Belichick and his six Super Bowl titles as a head coach has a plan and knows what he’s doing, faces another test — and perhaps its biggest one. It’s been tested before, through decisions such as trading Lawyer Milloy or letting Deion Branch walk or trading Jamie Collins or just go on down the list, but having Tom Brady here meant the Patriots were never truly sunk. It was tested when Belichick let Brady leave, but the coach who had gone nearly two decades without a losing team in New England deserved, and received, the benefit of the doubt.

But for many Patriots fans, the mantra has probably shifted more towards “In Bill We Trust…right?” The defense collapsed last year. Special teams were a disaster. The offense flashed at times, but didn’t show the potency that the rest of the AFC has been building towards. And this offseason hasn’t brought any answers. Josh McDaniels left and the Patriots seem to be planning to fill that role as they go along. J.C. Jackson departed, meaning New England doesn’t have the top two cornerbacks it had at this point a season ago, and the free agency solution was a retired Malcolm Butler.

The Patriots seem to be lagging behind. They haven’t won a playoff game since the Super Bowl in February 2019. Buffalo’s the team to beat in the AFC East. Miami has beaten New England the last three times they’ve played, and the Dolphins made upgrades to their team. The AFC West is stacked. Cincinnati is the defending AFC champion. Cleveland made a potentially game-changing move at quarterback. The number of teams you can just pencil the Patriots in as being better than is shrinking.

And in the draft that was the last real chance for him to reinforce his team for the season ahead, Belichick reached for a guard from Chattanooga. Someone who, even if he becomes great, doesn’t address the greater issues affecting this team.

It’s been a laid-back approach to the offseason after a sobering end to the actual season, and this pick was the latest blow to the once-unshakable notion that Belichick will always have the answers in the end. He’s answered the criticisms before. The pressure is now back on for him to do it again.