FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Running back Mike Gillislee, who signed a two-year, $6.4 million contract with the New England Patriots as a restricted free agent two weeks ago, is scheduled to meet with reporters at Gillette Stadium at 11 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
It will mark the first time that Gillislee answers questions from Patriots reporters since being signed away from the Buffalo Bills, and the media access provides a springboard to revisit the Patriots’ decision to sign him and surrender a fifth-round draft choice (No. 163 overall) to Buffalo in the process.
How does the Patriots’ decision look now, based on the way the draft unfolded?
As is often the case in football, there are multiple layers to the analysis.
NFL draft home page: Day 3 recap »
• By round: pick-by-pick analysis | By team
• Kiper: 2017 NFL Draft Grades
• McShay: Best pick for all 32 teams
• Nation: Best, riskiest moves for every team
• All 32 teams: Analysis for every pick
• Seifert: More prospects will skip bowls
• Where every QB was picked in '17 draft
• McShay: Top 10 undrafted prospects
• Trades: Look back at all 39 trades
• Fantasy: Day 2 reaction | Round 1
Quality of player: By the 163rd pick in the draft, 18 running backs already had been selected. The Patriots can feel, with strong confidence, that Gillislee is a better running back than what they would have picked at that spot. For example, Boise State running back Jeremy McNichols was selected by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at No. 162. McNichols might turn out to be a fine player, but Gillislee is a cut above at this time.
Economics/contract length: While the Patriots currently come out ahead in the “quality of player” category, they are at the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to economics and contract length. Gillislee’s deal averages $3.2 million per season and he is signed through 2018, while the 163rd pick is slotted for a total contract that is four years in length (through 2020) and averages around $642,000 per season. So teams that draft well, and hit on fifth-round picks, benefit from one of the best economic bargains in the game. Those hits, however, aren't prevalent.
Known value vs. not being sure: As owner Robert Kraft said at March’s NFL annual meeting, the Patriots have made some decisions this offseason in which they’ve chosen “known value” over “not being sure.” Trading a first-round pick (No. 32) for receiver Brandin Cooks qualifies, as does this move for Gillislee. Similar to the Gillislee move, the Cooks trade held up well based on the way the first round of the draft unfolded, but there’s also the same economics/contract length dynamic in play (Cooks is signed only through 2018) that is part of the consideration.
Cooks and Gillislee are picks 5 and 6: The record will show that the Patriots made a franchise-low four picks in the 2017 draft, which has led some talk-radio critics to pan the club’s work. That’s a bottom-line analysis that doesn’t factor in that the club willingly surrendered two picks for Cooks and Gillislee based on its belief that those players provide more total value than the prospects they would have drafted. Whether that turns out to be the case will be a big part of evaluating this draft class in the coming years. The team’s other trades involving draft picks for established players -- for defensive end Kony Ealy, tight end Dwayne Allen and tight end James O’Shaughnessy -- were deals in which the team flipped picks and sacrificed positioning in the draft. Thus, depending on one’s viewpoint, the team came out of this draft with four players, six players or nine players. For me, it's nine.
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