There’s a running joke that Bill Belichick likes to trade out of the first round of the NFL Draft, acquiring a larger number of late-round picks. This joke depends on his identity as something of a passionless rogue thinker. So after he used his first round draft pick last night to draft an actual football player, I decided to look back at his history as Head Coach (and de facto General Manager) of the New England Patriots. Here’s the full list of what he did with first round picks:

• 2000 (#16): Sent to Jets as compensation for his own hiring
• 2001 (#6): Drafted Richard Seymour
• 2002 (#32): Traded up to #21, drafted Dan Graham
• 2003 (#14): Acquired via trade for Drew Bledsoe, traded up to #13, drafted Ty Warren
• 2003 (#19): Traded down to 2nd round plus 2004 1st round
• 2004 (#21): Acquired via above trade, drafted Vince Wilfork
• 2004 (#32): Drafted Ben Watson
• 2005 (#32): Drafted Logan Mankins
• 2006 (#21): Drafted Lawrence Maroney
• 2007 (#28): Traded down to 4th round plus 2008 1st round
• 2008 (#7): Acquired via above trade, traded down to #10, drafted Jerod Mayo
• 2008 (#31): Forfeited as penalty for SpyGate
• 2009 (#23): Traded down to #26 plus 5th round, then traded those for a 2nd and two 3rds
• 2010 (#22): Traded down to #24, then again to #27, drafted Devin McCourty
• 2011 (#17): Acquired via trade for Richard Seymour, drafted Nate Solder
• 2011 (#28): Traded down to 2nd round plus 2012 1st round
• 2012 (#27): Acquired via above trade, traded up to #21, drafted Chandler Jones
• 2012 (#31): Traded up to #25, drafted Dont'a Hightower
• 2013 (#29): Traded down for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 7th round picks
• 2014 (#29): Drafted Dominique Easley

So in the past fifteen drafts, he’s drafted 13 players in the first round (including 2 after trading downward within the round and 4 after trading upward) and got out of the first round entirely 5 times. Draw whatever conclusion you like, but that doesn’t seem like a particularly strong trend to me. From 2007-2011, however, he traded down or out with 5 of their 6 picks – I wonder if that’s where this reputation originated.

Yesterday, the Patriots went into halftime with a 14-10 lead. They didn’t score once in the second half, and went home on the wrong side of a 14-28 game. I said at the time that it reminded me a lot of last year. I pulled up some numbers to be sure. (The following stats are for all of 2009 and 2010, including both regular and post-season games. That’s a total of 19 games.)

• In regulation over that period, we were 11-7-1. The one "tie" went into overtime and the Broncos won on a field goal. (Don't get me started on sudden death overtime.)
• If the games had ended after one half, we would have been 14-3-2 over that period. If they'd ended after three quarters, we'd have been 14-5-0.
• Our total point differential has been 154 points in the first half, and -28 in the second half.
• The point differentials have been 38 in the first quarter, 116 (!!) in the second, 3 points in the third, and -31 in the fourth quarter.

Maybe we can lobby the league to switch to a 45-minute clock when they go to a 20-week/18-game schedule?