Mock Draft 5.0: Patriots Trade Back in Dream Scenario

In our last mock draft of the offseason, we tried to make it realistic.

The New England Patriots were supposed to trade back - potentially even out of the first round entirely - to collect more draft capital and use those picks to move up and down the board to grab value.

New England did trade back in the first round, but still managed to get significant value in the backend of Day 1, on top of acquiring more draft capital.

Here were the results from PatriotMaven's Mock Draft 5.0, which was conducted on Pro Football Network's mock draft simulator:

28. (Pats trade 23 to Ravens for 28 and 92) Javon Kinlaw (DT)

44. (Pats trade 87, 92, 100, 172, and 195 to Colts for 44) Jacob Eason (QB)

98. Adam Trautman (TE)

125. Tyler Johnson (WR)

204. Antoine Brooks Jr. (S)

212. Shaquille Quarterman (ILB)

213. Jake Hanson (C)

230. Thakarius Keyes (CB)

241. Javelin Guidry (S)

The Patriots did it the Belichickean way, trading back to stockpile draft picks and seemingly having a stud fall in their laps in the process. Defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw is a player that is projected to go in the early-to-mid part of the first round. However, in this mock draft he began to slip when teams like the 49ers (who took A.J. Epenesa at 13) passed him up. While trading out of the first round was something I would have done had Kinlaw not been on the board, seeing the him on the board was too hard to pass up.

New England then traded a whopping five picks to the Colts - a team that has two second round picks this year - to move into the second round to select Washington's Jacob Eason, who will be immediate competition alongside Jarrett Stidham for the Patriots' starting quarterback job.

The Patriots didn't get to pick again until the backend of the third round (98) but that was okay, because Dayton's Adam Trautman was available at their first third round pick of the evening, while also getting wideout Tyler Johnson with their lone fourth round pick (125).

To finish off the draft, the six-time Super Bowl champions took three defensive backs to add youth and more developmental talent to the stacked group, a quality center to back up David Andrews (Jake Hanson) and a run-stuffing linebacker to fill the void left by Elandon Roberts (Shaquille Quarterman).

This was definitely a dream scenario for New England. They got tremendous value after trading back in the first round, drafted a quarterback with a premium pick - which is reportedly what they plan on doing - and added talent wherever it was available on the draft board from thereon.

While it seems unlikely that New England could get someone of Kinlaw's ability that late in the first round of a real draft, one GM told NFL Media's Ian Rapoport "The media is wronger about mock drafts this year than you guys have ever been," so maybe it's not that farfetched.

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