NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS
The best of the honest dogs — and they missed the top breed by a cliff, not a hair. The corner room graded top-three, the coaching fingerprint graded top-three, and the offense imported a 9-dawg receiver the frozen board prices in the second round. Everything here is physical, earnest, and slightly short of scary. That is the Golden Retriever description, verbatim, and I wrote the description before I graded the team.
The Four Factors
Each factor is normalized 0–100 across the league — 100 is first, 0 is dead last — then weighted into the 70.6. Weights are the same for all 32 teams: defense 35, offense 30, history 20, coaching 15.
DEFENSE
× 35%League-middle. The unit grades below split the difference: some rooms hunt, some rooms watch.
OFFENSE
× 30%Top-ten. The roster sheet below shows each man's blind dawg grade next to what the market pays for him.
HISTORY
× 20%Top-three on the board — recent, deep January runs are the only currency this column accepts, and the account is full.
COACHING
× 15%Top-three. Aggression you can verify on a chart, not a press-conference vibe.
The Unit Room
The raw grades behind the factors — my dawg read on each unit group, 1 to 10, with its weight inside the defense factor and where it ranks among the 32. Defense is graded by unit group this season, not player-by-player — per-player cap-hit weighting arrives when the final 2026 cap tables settle. Said loudly on the main board, said loudly here.
The Roster Sheet
Every Patriot on the frozen ADP board — the market's price next to my dawg read. The two numbers were never allowed to meet: I scored the player blind, then ADP told me how much of the offense rides on him. That firewall is the whole method. Every name links to that player's dawg file; the PROP FILE chip goes to his page in the prop room. Anyone rated after the board froze sits at the bottom as UNPRICED — same blind grade, no market number.
| ADP | PLAYER | POS | DAWG |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14.2 | A.J. Brown | WR | 9.0 / 10 |
| 59.2 | TreVeyon Henderson | RB | 7.0 / 10 |
| 64.8 | Drake MayePROP FILE → | QB | 7.0 / 10 |
| 70.7 | Rhamondre Stevenson | RB | 7.5 / 10 |
| 99.9 | Romeo DoubsPROP FILE → | WR | 6.0 / 10 |
| 153.4 | Hunter Henry | TE | 6.5 / 10 |
| UNPRICED | Stefon Diggs | WR | 8.0 / 10 |
A.J. Brown (9.0/10) is the alpha grade on this sheet.
Where the Paper Rides
The season-long ledger lives on the main board and grades itself all year. Here is the Patriots' part in it, breed against breed.
PATRIOTS VS THE LADDER
| OPPONENT'S BREED | ROTTWEILER | GOLDEN RETR. | GREYHOUND | COCKER SPAN. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| THE PLAY | 1 UNIT · OPPONENT | NO PLAY | 1 UNIT · NE | 2 UNITS · NE |
Golden against Golden is a wash — nothing goes on the ledger. Above them, the paper rides the Rottweiler; below them, it rides the Patriots — one unit against the track teams, two when a Spaniel wanders in. The rating is locked all season. If I graded the heart wrong, the ledger will tell on me in public.