Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome into Tom Cairns, Patriots Talk Podcast. We're going to have Bruce Feldman from the Athletic join us in just a minute. Bruce, one of the foremost college football writers in the country.

He was with us just a couple weeks ago, previewing the draft.

But before we get to that, no Phil.

I'm going to give him a blow here.

He'll be with me on Quicks, Lance later.

But it's interesting because everybody loves, loves the Patriots draft.

You know, you take a sampling of knee-jerk, national draft grades, and the Patriots,

when they had a consensus of all the grades, and I put this in a column on NBC Sports, Boston,

they weren't first by a little bit.

They were first in a landslide.

Now, are these grades an actual predictor of future success?

No, not entirely.

Last year, the Patriots were 12th on that big board evaluation and was buoyed mostly

by Frank May, J. Vaughon Baker, Jalen Polk.

May was great. Polk and Baker know where to be found.

So these grades aren't forecast.

In my mind, and I think in the mind of anyone who pays close attention is,

they are evaluations of the real-time decisions made.

They're not going to say, oh, that's a great pick.

He's going to be an incredible player.

It's basically saying, was a player taken too early relative to what the rest of the league thinks?

Was he taken on time the way, for instance, Trayvion Henderson was?

...