NFL Draft

The first draft of the post-Tom Brady era is in the books. The absence of the greatest quarterback ever notwithstanding, things were business as usual for the Patriots when it came to the 2020 NFL Draft. Trading out of the first round? Check. Reaching on a defensive back in the second round because of his special teams prowess? Check. Not…

The defending NFC champion San Francisco 49ers did a good job filling their needs on draft weekend.

Seth Markman was just as nervous as NFL coaches and general managers about the unknown factors involved with a virtual draft. But the ESPN executive producer said he was overwhelmed with how everything came together over the three days.

There were 10 picks made by the Patriots in the 2020 NFL Draft, but the real star of the show for New England was Bill Belichick’s dog, Nike. Drafting from his Nantucket home, Belichick decided to take a break from the action and let Nike take over. The hilarious sight of Nike sitting in Belichick’s chair with the Patriots on the clock made...

The Patriots didn’t find a replacement for Tom Brady in the draft, if that was even possible. But they did address almost every other one of their needs. New England entered the draft with 12 picks and after making several trades over three days wound up selecting 10 players. Patriots coach Bill Belichick acknowledged the team made an attempt to…

Maybe the Southeastern Conference should simply hold onto its players and become part of the NFL

Pitch and catch

The Patriots have made their first pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, and it’s a player from a school you’ve likely never heard of. With the 37th overall pick, New England selected safety Kyle Dugger out of Lenoir-Rhyne University, an NCAA Division II school in Hickory, North Carolina. Dugger, who stands 6-foot-1, 217 pounds, is the first player to be…

Bill Belichick has traded out of the first round before, but was it the right move after the departure of Tom Brady? Raul Martinez and Phil Perry discuss.

The Cincinnati Bengals on Friday opened the second round of the NFL draft by selecting WR Tee Higgins of Clemson. The first night of the NFL draft, on Thursday, averaged a record 15.6 million viewers on television, easily shattering the record set six years ago. Thursday night’s first round was aired on ABC, ESPN, the NFL Network and ESPN Deportes….

Six wide receivers were taken in the first round of the NFL draft and another half dozen could go on Day 2, when rounds two and three are completed.

The Patriots didn’t make a pick in Round 1 of the 2020 NFL Draft on Thursday night. But they are in position to add a lot of pieces and will have no shortage of talented prospects to choose from, according to our Phil Perry.

In one of the most anticipated drafts in team history, the Patriots decided the first round wasn’t worth it. New England dealt its first-round pick, No. 23 overall, to the Chargers in exchange for a second-round pick (37th overall) and a third-round pick (71st overall) in the draft over the weekend. Los Angeles used the pick to select linebacker Kenneth…

For all the uniqueness of this NFL draft, including the angst over a potential communications fiasco, things looked and sounded pretty normal Thursday night.

The Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday made LSU QB Joe Burrow the first pick of the NFL draft.

Fifty-eight prospects will take part remotely in the NFL draft, which has gone virtual because of the coronavirus pandemic

The 2020 NFL Draft gets underway on Thursday and boy, do the Patriots need to make it count. It’s too soon to tell if New England has any keepers from the 2018 or 2019 drafts, but the three years leading up to them were among the five worst draft classes of the Bill Belichick era. By and large, however, Belichick…

Forget about the six quarterbacks taken before Tom Brady, see if you can name the six players the Patriots drafted before taking a flier on the quarterback from Michigan in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft. Couldn’t come up with Adrian Klemm, JR Redmond, Greg Randall, Dave Stachelski, Jeff Marriott or Antwan Harris? Don’t worry, you aren’t...

For those who haven’t mastered the odds of Belarussian soccer or Russian table tennis, this week’s NFL draft gives U.S. gamblers their first opportunity in weeks to bet on an event about which they actually know something.

Even in the age of social distancing amid the coronavirus pandemic, it’s debatable whether or not the Pro Bowl would be worth watching for a sports-starved nation. The game itself has morphed into a running punchline, the worst of the all-star exhibitions put on by any North American professional sports league exacerbated by the fact that football players have...