Second (and third) helpings

OUR FUTURE QB: Sadly, it's not Snoop.

Hey Bill, I'm not getting any younger. And neither is your franchise QB. Enough with the dumping picks this year for picks the next year. Year after year. How about using all your picks now to add some much needed playmakers on defense. Enough with this saving-picks-for-the-future stuff. Live a little!

Of all the puzzling drafts the Pats GM/coach/czar/D coordinator/head of building services/ticket-taker has overseen, this is by far the most puzzling. So far. There are still a few rounds left. But Ron Borges is going to have a field day with this one. As will sports blab radio for weeks to come. Belichick just made their merry month of May. Pile on guys and gals. Pile on.

The Pats still have four picks in the last four rounds Saturday so Belichick isn't done. He can trade those away too. Or maybe, maybe, he'll take a defensive end or outside linebacker who can rush the passer. Last I heard that's still a big part of football in the NFL.

I usually take a wait-and-see attitude about draft picks. Really, even the scouts and coaches who make the picks have very little idea how well they will work out. Who knew that cornerback out of Rutgers was going to be a rookie of the year contender? You just never know. But the results of the second and third rounds, widely acknowledged as the rounds where you can get the most bang for your drafting buck, were very disappointing and frustrating.

A cornerback? Two running backs? And a quarterback? Puzzling indeed.

Cornerback was certainly not an area of great need. As was running back. (Even if it was, only one guy can carry the ball at a time so why draft two so high?). And quarterback probably isn't a weakness at the moment. That Brady guy still seems pretty good.

Disappointment and frustration aside, the Pats do have four new players to add to offensive lineman Solder from round one. None of them were on my very uninformed list of players, but apparently they were on Belichick's.

Ras-I Dowling, CB: I was sure the Pats would open the day by drafting Clemson defensive end Da'Quan Bowers. Nope. Instead the Pats picked Virginia cornerback Ras-I Dowling. (How was he not on my list of great football names to draft?) Dowling is 6-1 and almost 200 pounds. Reports are that he would have been a high first-rounder if he wasn't injured last season. He's supposed to be healthy. Like I said last year when the Pats took McCourty, in this pass happy league you can never have enough young, talented corners. I assumed Belichick either felt that he couldn't pass on such talent or that he just wanted to say ''Ras-I'' at team meetings. I also assumed my pass rushers would be next on the draft list.

Shane Vereen, RB and Stevan Ridley, RB: This is when Belichick started to lose me. The Pats could have taken Mark Ingram with the 28th pick in the first round. A potential great running back. But since BenJarvis and Woody had a very good year last year another RB was a very low priority so I wasn't too surprised when the team passed on Ingram, letting the Saints grab him. I got that logic. Then how do you explain making back-to-back running back selections? Did running back suddenly become a need overnight? Did something happen to Bennie and Woody? The two backs the Pats took seem like solid players with potential. Especially Vereen. They might make good replacements for Kevin Faulk and Sammy Morris. They just won't help the team's sack total.

Ryan Mallet, QB: Here's what CBS Sports draft analyst Rob Rang says about the possible heir to the Brady throne... ''Combine Mallett's off-field issues with the unappealing way he carries himself and poor athleticism for the position, and you have a plummeting quarterback prospect.'' Hmmmm. This pick really had me wondering if Belichick had jumped the shark. The texts from my nephew Pete and my friend Mark can be summed up in three letters ... WTF?

That pretty much sums up my reaction to day two of the draft. A day that saw the Pats enter with five picks and lots of pass rushing potential still on the big board. The day ended with the Pats having added more picks for next year and four players that, at the moment, don't look like they will have much of an impact. The Pats finished 14-2 last year and Brady, one of the three or four best QBs to ever play the game, had one of his best years. It's a good idea to draft some guys for the future. But it's also a good idea to find two or three who can help right away. So far the Pats drafted one guy who fits that bill. Oh, and those 2012 draft picks will look fine on Draft Day 2012. They just won't be much help chasing Ben Roethlisberger around the field in the fall.

There were lots of videos on future QB Ryan Mallett... But any video with Gruden is the best.