5 knee jerk reactions to crazy first round of the 2022 NFL Draft

With the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft wrapped up, here are five knee-jerk reactions to the events from Thursday.

The first round of the 2022 NFL Draft was a wild one, as picks and trades quickly became unpredictable. Some players that many thought would go early fell to the later portion while others that no one expected were surprise picks in the first.

Here are five knee-jerk reactions from the first round of the NFL Draft.

Patriots are the real wild card

There is an age-old idea that Bill Belichick tends to give up on drafts when they don’t go his way.

He likes certain players, and if the board doesn’t fall the right way, he just starts taking random players off his draft list.

One just has to think about the time they took two late-round tight ends in the third round in 2020 or when they took Cyrus Jones in the second round of the 2016 Draft.

This seemed to be just the case for the Patriots in the first round of this draft. Supposedly, they were linked to the top interior guards in the first round, but both were off the board when they were on the clock.

Then, after trading back, Devin Lloyd went off the board, another name that was linked to the Patriots.

In turn, New England turned around and drafted Cole Strange in the first round. The small school prospect was seen by most as a day two or early day three pick, thus him being taken in the first was an utter shock.

Don’t be surprised to see the Patriots just throw caution to the wind at this point and take some wildcard picks for the remainder of the draft.