The New England Patriots came into the seventh round of the 2011 NFL Draft with one pick that they had acquired only a day before in a trade with Oakland. The Patriots gave up their 3rd round pick (#92) and the fourth round pick (#125) for the Raiders 7th round pick (#219) and Oakland’s 2012 second rounder.
And with their final pick in 2011 draft with selection #219 the Patriots chose TCU CB/S Malcom Williams who is 5’10’, 204 lbs. He played in 13 games last season with the Horned Frogs and had 12 tackles on defense and 10 more tackles on special teams.
In 2009 he had 10 total tackles with six coming on special teams.
Prior to coming to TCU he played for two years at Trinity Valley Community College when he was second in the nation in interceptions his sophomore year.
According to some this looks like a special teams pick just as Matthew Slater was in 2008.
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This wraps up the draft for New England as Bill Belichick and his staff made 9 overall picks taking 6 offensive players and only 3 players on defense. The selections were kind of surprising in that the Patriots really needed an edge rusher and the draft was felt to be very deep in defensive ends. In fact prior to the draft Belichick said the draft would probably be defined by the teams who best evaluated the defensive linemen because of the depth in that group.
Yet with all that depth they failed to draft a true defensive end selecting an outisde linebacker who can play end in Markell Cater and 2 defensive backs, Rasi-I Dowling and Williams. It is to say a bit puzzling but the pone thing I keep saying is The Man has a track record and a lot of times I’ve looked at his picks and said “huh?” only to see how good that player is when the games were played.
The Patriots did beef up their offensive line with a good blocking tight end and in Lee Smith and 2 offensive linemen in Marcus Cannon and Nate Solder. They added two running backs in Shane Vereen and Stevan Ridley and a potential #2 QB in Ryan Mallett.
Out of the 9 picks I think Solder, Dowling and Vereen could potentially make every Sunday contributions with regular play. Cannon, if healthy, and Smith I see as package players with extra lineman, three tight end sets with Carter helping in nickel and dime situations. Ridley and Williams are probably targeted for the practice squad and Mallett will at least be the third quarterback behind Brian Hoyer with a chance to be the second.
