Whether true or not, New England Patriots fans believe the team typically drafts for old school style players that fit football schemes, while opting to pass on explosive playmaking athletes.
That might have been true when having the greatest quarterback of all time, Tom Brady, leading the offense. The team opted to select more intelligent, passionate players than flashy athletes they needed to develop.
But the truth is the Patriots did in fact draft high-end athletes. Let’s face it, they’re all elite athletes if they’re in the NFL, but in terms of comparing apples to apples (or NFL Players to NFL Players), they did so at a lower clip than most.
RAS, or relative athletic score, has been widely used to quantify just how athletic a player is based on their official combine performances for their position and size. Players are given a 0-10 score, which is derived from other players at the same position throughout history.
The closer a player is to 10.00—and there have been a few—the more “freakish” the athlete. Players like Calvin Johnson, Jordan Davis, and Anthony Richardson are examples of the short list of players since 1987 to score a 10.00 on the RAS scale.
Let’s take a look at the Patriots’ 10 most athletic draft selections in the Bill Belichick era.