The New England Patriots just won the Super Bowl, which means they should be picking last in each round.

But because they are the New England Patriots, that’s not the case. In fact, New England is tied with the Browns for having the 8th-most draft capital in the 2019 Draft… even after trading away three picks! How did that happen?

Let’s start with what the Patriots lost.

Last March New England traded with Cleveland to acquire defensive tackle Danny Shelton, sending a 2019 3rd round pick for Shelton and the Browns 2018 5th round pick. Shelton wound up being only a part-time player for the Patriots (he played on 31% of the team’s defensive snaps), although New England also sent that 2018 5th round selection to Oakland to acquire Cordarrelle Patterson.

This past September, the Patriots against traded with the Browns, sending the team’s 2019 5th round pick to Cleveland for wide receiver Josh Gordon. The return was pretty good, as Gordon had 720 yards and 3 touchdowns in 11 games.

Finally, back in September 2017, the Patriots traded their 2019 6th round pick to the Lions for defensive back Johnson Bademosi. While only lasting a season in New England, Bademosi played in every game on defense and special teams.

Okay, so New England entered the 2019 Draft down its 3rd, 5th, and 6th round picks, and also had the last pick in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 7th rounds. That sounds really bad! But New England was able to add a ton of value through the compensatory draft picks process along with a couple of shrewd trades.

New England lost Nate Solder to the Giants and Malcolm Butler to the Titans, and both players signed deals in excess of $10M per year. As a result, the Patriots got back 3rd round picks for both players.

New England also allowed both Danny Amendola and Dion Lewis to leave. Both were valued as 6th round picks, although one was cancelled out by the Patriots signing Adrian Clayborn; as a result, New England netted one 6th round pick here, too.

New England also got the 252nd pick in the draft — which is essentially worthless, but hey it’s still a pick! — for Cameron Fleming.

And on the trading front, New England did very well, too.

During the 2018 Draft, the Patriots held the 51st pick. The Bears really wanted that pick, so Chicago traded up with New England to draft WR Anthony Miller. In return, the Patriots got back Chicago’s 2019 2nd round pick (#56) to Bears and Chicago’s 2018 4th round pick.

With the Bears 2018 4th round pick, New England traded down with the Browns to move down in the 4th round and pick up a 6th rounder. New England then send the Browns 4th round pick to Detroit for the Lions 2019 3rd round pick, as Detroit traded up for DT Da’Shawn Hand. So the Patriots wound up turning the 51st pick in the 2018 Draft into the 56th and 73rd picks in the 2019 Draft and a 2018 6th rounder (Christian Sam).

Based on my draft value chart, the Patriots had 24 points of draft value based on winning the Super Bowl — i.e., having the last pick in every round. New England lost 8.2 points of value in traded, and then got back a whopping 27.7 points of value in comp picks and trade. The Patriots also have three close-to-meaningless picks at the end of round 7, too, which are all valued at zero in my draft value chart.

Here’s a visual to show you how New England did. The first column shows, with blue circles surrounded by red, shows the four picks the Patriots earned based on their 2018 season and that the team still has. The next column — white circles surrounded by red — shows the picks the Patriots lost via trade. And the right column at the end — red circles surrounded by blue — shows the picks New England added by being smarter than everyone else. The Y-Axis shows the draft value (on my chart) of those picks:

For reference, the Patriots have even more draft capital in the 2019 Draft than the Jets, who own the 3rd overall pick in the draft but lost their second round pick in the trade for Sam Darnold. New England has 6 picks in the first 3 rounds of the Draft, which only happens when the rest of the league allows the Patriots to be smarter than them.