Ostensibly, the Patriots and Bengals share almost nothing in common.

A perennial laughing stock in the league, Cincinnati will soon celebrate its status as the NFL’s worst team by drafting first overall. The Patriots, who just endured their worst season in a decade, can comfort themselves with their six Lombardi trophies when making a rare pick among the league’s middle class at No. 23. Because even in a down year, the Pats still hosted a playoff game.

When it comes to recent draft history, however, the two franchises share common ground. From the last six drafts, only two teams have failed to procure a single future Pro Bowler.

Who are they? You guessed it: the Pats and Bengals.

For the Patriots, it gets worse.

Most NFL teams produced a homegrown Pro Bowler last season alone. To have gone six seasons without doing so, makes them an unquestionable outlier. The case of Cincinnati’s struggles is easy enough to solve: cheap ownership, a small scouting department and inadequate player development under the stale leadership of former coach Marvin Lewis, whose successor just completed a spectacularly successful tank in Year 1.

But how did the Pats get here? The NFL’s premier franchise failing to draft a widely recognized star since the middle of the Obama administration?

In fairness, Pro Bowl recognition is a highly imperfect measurement of draft success. Since 2014, the Patriots have still drafted better than teams like the Redskins and Jets, whose last few classes have been full of laughable swings and misses. They’ve hit several singles, and there’s value in that — even if you can’t connect for a home run.

Pro Bowl selection also depends partly on fan and player votes, rendering it a watered-down popularity contest. Naturally, the Patriots aren’t too popular nationwide.

Though the argument the Pats draft too late to find future Pro Bowlers doesn’t hold for two reasons. One, picking in the late 20s and early 30s of each round did not preclude them from unearthing stars from 2001-2013, when it was almost an annual occurrence.

Second, simply by virtue of picking players every year — even as an annual Super Bowl contender selecting in the back end of each round — odds are the Pats would have landed at least one Pro Bowler since their last: Jamie Collins in 2013.

They haven’t.

If the Patriots are to return to the Super Bowl — especially without Tom Brady — their clearest path starts with finding these caliber of players via the draft. Drafting well is far from the only way to build a championship team, but it is the most cost-effective. Look no further than the second half of the Pats’ dynasty.

The Patriots’ last three title runs were headlined by homegrown Hall of Famers in Brady and Rob Gronkowski, supported by drafted defensive stars like Pro Bowlers Devin McCourty and Dont’a Hightower and backboned by a series of strong draft classes.

A year after drafting Gronkowski in 2010, the Pats selected three future starters. In 2012, Belichick pulled off the greatest first round of his tenure, nabbing Hightower and future All-Pro pass rusher Chandler Jones. He drafted special teams stalwart Nate Ebner days later.

The next season, three defensive centerpieces were taken in the first three rounds: Collins, Logan Ryan and Duron Harmon. Combined, they won six Super Bowl rings, the first after the 2014 season. In 2015, Belichick found defensive lineman Trey Flowers and offensive guard Shaq Mason, two of the highest-paid players at their positions today, in the fourth round.

Despite a downturn in draft success since, the Patriots managed to age well. Brady’s excellence papered over roster holes, most notably in his 2017 MVP year and the 2018 Super Bowl run. Belichick replaced expensive players like Jones through savvy, middle-class free agent signings and pick-swap trades.

Slowly, the Pats became the oldest team in the league and still contended, year after year after year.

But even fine wines expire.

Aside from Mason and 2016 second-rounder Joe Thuney, the Pats have failed to draft, develop and keep any foundational pieces. Flowers is gone. So is Brady, leaving behind a graying roster that’s steadily leaked talent and needs an infusion of offensive skill soon.

The jury is still out on the last class. Punter Jake Bailey and defensive end Chase Winovich were the only drafted rookies who played more than nine games in 2019. First-round wideout N’Keal Harry should have joined them.

The leg injury that shelved Harry for the first two months of his career wasn’t his fault. But the fact undrafted Jakobi Meyers out-played him from Day 1 reflected poorly — both on Harry and the front office.

Ultimately, until Harry returns to the field, he will personify the two problems causing the Patriots’ homegrown Pro Bowler drought: injury and the inability to identify skill-position talent.

The Pats are flat-out miserable at drafting wide receivers. Belichick’s failures on this front are well-documented, going back as far as Chad Jackson in 2006. The other pass-catching positions aren’t much better, considering the last five years have yielded all of Harry, running backs Sony Michel and Damien Harris, wideouts Braxton Berrios, Malcolm Mitchell, Devin Lucien and tight ends Ryan Izzo and A.J. Derby.

Pending Harry’s development, the only player on that list who may have performed to draft expectation is Mitchell. And Mitchell never played a snap beyond his rookie year.

His career was stunted by chronic knee issues, a pre-draft risk the Patriots understood and assumed when they selected him. Just as they did with defensive tackle Dominique Easley, the worst first-round pick of the Belichick era, when the drought started in 2014. And later Michel in 2018.

Now, every front office misfires in the draft. Wasted picks like Easley, Duke Dawson and Jordan Richards, among others, happen every year everywhere. The same goes for injuries randomly victimizing rookies; like the torn Achilles first-rounder Isaiah Wynn suffered in 2018 and the torn ACLs that devastated the Pats’ top picks in 2016 and 2017, Cyrus Jones and Derek Rivers.

The Patriots cannot control the randomness of injury or draft busts. They can, however, work to mitigate those risks. How?

By passing on first-round talents with serious medical histories, reviewing their evaluation methods for skill-position players and prioritizing high-floor prospects early in the draft.

It’s not easy to identify and develop Pro Bowl talent. But it shouldn’t be this hard.

It’s time to end the drought.