FOXBORO, Mass. -- The New England Patriots go into the draft with a team that already looks different from last season's champions.\nTy Law and Troy Brown were released, and Tedy Bruschi had a mild stroke that could sideline him at least for this season. Still, coach Bill Belichick isn't counting on immediate contributions from the players he picks this weekend.\n"It is not always what a guy can do on the first opening day of his rookie year," he said. "We have seen a lot of players that have changed their value to the team as they have improved, whether it be after the first year or after the second year."\nThat growth process worked so well that the Patriots won three of the last four Super Bowls, an amazing accomplishment, but one that extends their season and cuts into their time to plan for the draft.\n"I'm glad that that was the situation," Belichick said. "But it is still putting three months worth of work into two or two and a half," he said. "There is nothing we can do about it."\nHe and his staff haven't had to spend much time studying the top 10 to 15 players available because the Patriots have the last picks of the first and second rounds. That gives them fewer options to trade for a better pick than they had last year, when they had the 21st and 32nd picks but kept both.\nTheir third pick is the 100th overall, a compensatory choice for losing free agents. Their own third-round choice was traded to Arizona for cornerback Duane Starks. They're not allowed to trade the compensatory pick.\n"That really limits what you can do in the first two rounds," Belichick said.\nThe key for Belichick is how a drafted player performs within the Patriots' system once he becomes familiar with it. And that player could be chosen in a late round rather than on Saturday's first day of the draft, when the first three rounds will occur.\nThe Patriots took quarterback Tom Brady in the sixth round in 2000, a choice Belichick called the best of his career.\nBut he also took wide receiver David Givens in the seventh round in 2002 and center Dan Koppen in the fifth round in 2003. Then there's Brown, an eighth-round pick in 1993 who turned into an outstanding wide receiver and even saw considerable action at defensive back last season.\nWith an eye toward controlling their salary cap, the Patriots released Brown and should be set at wide receiver after signing veterans David Terrell and Tim Dwight. Belichick said Brown could be re-signed.\nDiscussing that possibility, Belichick said, "I don't want to comment on any of those personal conversations."\nThe Patriots could use help in the draft at defensive back after releasing Law after 10 years with the team. And Bruschi's condition -- along with the release of linebacker Roman Phifer -- creates a need at that position.\nBelichick shed no light on the likelihood of Bruschi playing this year.\n"I think that Tedy has made a number of comments about his situation, and I would just defer to him on any of those. I don't have anything to add," he said.\nEven if Belichick isn't counting on Bruschi for the coming season, that might not influence him to draft a linebacker.\n"If you are looking for a certain type of player, there is going to be a group that really appeals to you," he said. "And there is going to be another group that you just really don't have much use for but are going to be drafted because other teams will be looking for those types of players."\nSince the Super Bowl, the team has added linebackers Monty Beisel from Kansas City and Wesly Mallard from the New York Giants.\nBut Belichick said his current roster doesn't have much of an influence on his draft plans.\n"I don't think if you start drafting by need or try to come out of the draft and say, 'Well, we needed a guard, and we got a guard. We needed a receiver, and we got a receiver,'" he said. "But if they can't perform and fill that role for you competitively on the field, then you really haven't done anything."\nEven if he doesn't pick a linebacker or defensive back, he can still add productive young players. Before last season the Patriots signed free-agent rookie Randall Gay, and he ended up starting most of the games at cornerback.\n"We are just trying to improve the team as much as we can between now and when we go to training camp," Belichick said. "It is not going to be finished after this weekend."\nOhio State running back Clarett likely a 2nd-day choice \nMaurice Clarett's long, strange trip to the NFL is nearing its end. Maybe.\nIt's been more than two years since Clarett scored the touchdown that gave Ohio State its first national title in 34 years.\nThen came legal troubles, NCAA violations and a failed lawsuit against the NFL. A player once spoken of with the kind of awe reserved for a young talent like LeBron James had become synonymous with controversy and poor character.\nNow Clarett is saying and doing all the right things -- enough, perhaps, for a team to select him in this weekend's NFL draft.\n"He's definitely a second-day pick," said Gil Brandt, the NFL's draft consultant. "He's really tried to turn his life around."\nBrandt knows Clarett hasn't dazzled anyone with his speed. After a disastrous showing at the NFL combine, Clarett improved last month at a private workout near his hometown of Warren, Ohio, running a 4.67-second 40-yard dash.\nBut Emmitt Smith and Jerome Bettis didn't run that fast either, Brandt said.\n"He might be a player that just doesn't run fast but somehow gets the job done," Brandt said.\nDon't look for Clarett to get drafted any earlier than the fifth round, said Mike Mayock, a draft analyst for the NFL Network.\n"This is a pretty good running back class coming out this year. I'd much rather go with a proven track record of durability," Mayock said. "Is somebody going to say, 'Let's take a chance?' Yes."\nBrandt points to Clarett's wrestling the ball away from Sean Taylor after an interception -- one of the most memorable plays of Ohio State's 31-24 victory over top-ranked Miami in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl -- as a reason why Clarett is worth drafting.
It was a play that took great football sense, something his representatives have been promoting in recent weeks.\n"Maurice is one of these guys who you can do all the drills in the world, you put a football in his hand, and he turns into a different kid," said his attorney, David Kenner. "That's Maurice. He's been doing it since he was 5 years old, and I don't see any reason to believe it should change now."\nClarett rushed for 1,237 yards and 16 touchdowns as a freshman at Ohio State despite missing three games with injuries. Then the trouble started.\nClarett was charged with misdemeanor falsification for filing a police report claiming that more than $10,000 in clothing, CDs, cash and stereo equipment was stolen from a car he borrowed from a local dealership. He later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.\nOhio State athletic director Andy Geiger announced in September 2003 that Clarett was suspended for the season for receiving special benefits worth thousands of dollars from a family friend and for misleading investigators.\nClarett then challenged the NFL's rule that a player must be out of high school three years to be eligible for the draft. Initially a judge ruled in his favor, but an appellate court overturned the decision.\nClarett continued making headlines for all the wrong reasons, including his allegations that coach Jim Tressel arranged for him to get passing grades, cars and money for bogus summer jobs.\nHe became a pariah as far as NFL teams were concerned.\nBut Clarett, who did not respond to an interview request, showed the first sign of taking responsibility for his actions during an interview at the NFL combine.\n"When I looked at myself, sometimes I kind of looked like a joke to myself," he said. "I guess it was a part of growing up and becoming who I am today. I did do some things I shouldn't have done."\nAgent Steve Feldman said his client's image as an arrogant kid who was going to sue his way into the NFL is gone. He thinks any of 32 teams could draft him this weekend.\n"They're getting a feel for the fact that his biggest fault was he took extra benefits," Feldman said. "He just wants a job. He wants to prove that he has first-round talent."\nClarett's mother, Michelle, has stood by her son through it all and said she only wishes for success in whatever he sets out to do.\n"I think with every year of life, young people mature," she said. "It's important to learn from the journey"
