FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- As anticipation and excitement builds in many locales for Thursday night's first round of the NFL draft, the New England region falls into a different ho-hum type of category for the second year in a row.
No first-round pick. No major buzz.
But unlike 2016, when the Patriots didn't have a selection as a result of the NFL's penalties for Deflategate, the team's absence from the first round this year is by its own doing: trading the No. 32 overall pick to the New Orleans Saints for wide receiver Brandin Cooks.