Not sure where you got that quote, but both Pioli and Bellichick have said they each had veto power on each other.

I assume that it meant "since the 2000 draft" (when the Pats took Brady in the 6th round), only these teams...

Obviously, Indy took Peyton high, and obviously, EVERY team has taken a QB before 94 at some point in their franchise history.

All you have to do is give this a little bit of thought (I know that's asking a lot of you).

Bill Bellichick is the head coach of the Patriots.
He doesn't have time to go on scouting trips, or to pour through the hours upon hours of tape on players in college.

That job fell to Scott Pioli.

He has to pare down potential draft candidates to much, much smaller list.

BB has the final say, but there's no way that you can look at the Patriots draft and fail to give Pioli a huge amount of credit for the work that's been done there.

Agree, but at this point it doesn't look like there are going to be any D-linemen worth taking with the #3 overall pick. So Pioli is either going to have to take another position at that pick or trade down.

BJ Raji would be an interesting pick if we traded down. He would provide the versatility NE typically looks for in D-linemen, as he could be our NT in a 3-4 and also dominate within a 4-3.

I disagree that Riley was a bust. He gave the Chiefs four solid years at RT before leaving to the Saints in FA, and I think he had to retire early due to injuries.

yep. in an alternate universe, riley and tait are the starting tackles on our super bowl winning dynasty.

Agreed. Some sort of shock collar system where any football game that's on the person who thinks The Germ should be kept get's zapped until the channel is changed.

Go watch soccer.

The new Falcons GM brought in last year worked under Pioli. Pioli was his boss. They couldn't get Pioli so they took the 2nd best guy. What did Pioli's #2 do?

Drafted Ryan with the 3rd pick in the draft who King Carl and Herm felt would be a flop. Thats turned out pretty well.

Paid a big money FA contract to LT's backup out of SD, michal turner. What did he so? Ran for over 1,300 yards(I think thats right). Most of the NFL thought they overpaid and he would just be an average run of the mill RB out of LT's shadow.

Gave the job to an older coach who had never been a head coach in the NFL. He's getting results on the field and his players love him.

Every single one of those moves paid off and in one year for the Falcons and they went from a laughing stock to the playoffs.

Turner ran for 1699 yards.

You are correct as far as you go, with Pioli doing alot of the scouting, both film and individually, durign the season.

My understanding is that the pared down list that Pioli is primarily in charge of creating then gets handed to BB, who also does a ton of film work (big surprise, I know) on those players on the list, and of course deals directly with scouts.

It would be a vast mistake to think that BB was passive or uninvolved in the drafting process.

All that said, I take nothing away from Pioli, who headed the entire scouting process, and had shared veto power with BB in the draft room.

I imagine Pioli will be lookiing to slide down, unless he has someone he really likes. Of course, it takes two to tango.

I didn't suggest that BB was passive and ininvolved.

My point is that Pioli has to be a damn good evaluator that sees the types of players that fit into the Patriots system in order for the Patriots evaluation process to work as well as it does.

Yes. Pioli's biggest challenge, to be honest, will be to find and get a coach that he can be 100% on the same page with so that he can get exactly the types of players that the coach wants to have in his system.

This leads me to believe that someone from the BB coaching tree will likely be his choice. Whether that's Ferentz or Schwartz or whomever I don't know, but it would make things a little easier for Pioli to find the guys the coach needs.

There's the PFT piece that says that Pioli isn't exactly a fan of Shwartz.

Everyone else (ESPN, Shefter) seems to think that Shwartz would be at the top of his list, along with Ferentz.

Victor Riley was a three-year starter before getting injured and traded to the Saints where he again put in a couple years as a starter. I wouldn't call him a bust. Nor would I label SlyMo a bust, he had a terrible injury that ended his career but seemed to be a promising talent his rookie year.

But I get your point -- it gets worse when you look at the second round picks:

2008 - Brandon Flowers (looks to be solid)
2007 - Turk McBride (???)
2006 - Bernard Pollard (starter, but not a good one)
2004 - Junior Savaii (bust)
2004 - Kris Wilson (gone)
2003 - Kawika Mitchell (gone)
2002 - Eddie Freeman (bust)
2000 - William Bartee (bust)