With the NFL’s scouting combine on tap next week, draft plans are starting to take shape for the league’s 32 teams. For the Patriots, it’s a draft plan that — thanks to the NFL’s carefully worded Deflategate punishment — almost surely won’t include a first-round pick.
Even if the Patriots want to try and acquire one from another team, the way the penalty is worded, if the Pats have more than one selection in the round, “the earlier selection shall be forfeited.”
Therefore, the chances of them doing that are slim and none.
The Pats did not put up a fight to contest the NFL stripping them of a first-round pick as a result of the Deflategate saga, even after Tom Brady won in federal court and had his four-game suspension overturned.