FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Quick-hit thoughts and notes around the New England Patriots and NFL:

1. Patriots director of player personnel Nick Caserio holds one annual news conference, usually before the draft, which makes the chance to hear him speak publicly a rare one. On Saturday, Caserio made a return appearance to be on a panel at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, joining Bill James (baseball), Sue Bird (basketball), Chris Bosh (basketball), Mitch Kupchak (basketball) for "Put a Ring on It: Building a Champion."

The panel was moderated by ESPN's Jackie MacMullan, and it explored the challenges of building a consistent winner and the culture to match.

Caserio went into some depth on the importance of role players, highlighting one example of how the Patriots view the construction of their roster.

"The way salary structure is put together, you have 'X' amount of players who are on elite-level contracts on your roster, you have minimum-salary players which are typically draft choices and younger players, and then you have a middle class -- whatever the range may be, that is another grouping of players. A lot of those [middle class] players have a significant role and make a significant contribution to your team. What we try to do, as best we can, is identify what the player's role [is] and the cost associated with that. If the player continues in that role, and the salary is commensurate with that role, it makes sense. If for some reason there starts to be a gap there, there has to be some sort of an adjustment. I think a perfect example of a role player for our team [is] James White," Caserio said on the panel.

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"We drafted James White in the [2014] fourth round and at the time, we had Shane Vereen on the roster as well. In 2014, Shane played great in the Super Bowl, and had a really good role as our passing-game back, third-down kind of sub back. So we had drafted James and he didn't play that much because we had Shane in that role. Shane was going to be a free agent. What we had to do, it was this time of year exactly, say, 'OK, Shane was a good player, had a lot of great qualities, and in our system was a really productive player, and he was going to be a free agent.' He went on the open market and he was associated a certain value and [we] made a decision that, 'OK, we're going to move on from Shane because we felt -- we didn't know because it really wasn't a lot of evidence/body of work -- but going back to when we drafted James, we liked his skill set.

"In college offenses, you don't see a lot of passing-game backs or passing-game players, so there's a little bit of a projection element when you have that player in our system. So we moved on from Shane, James kind of asserted himself into that role, and we saw what he did in 2016, quasi-MVP of the Super Bowl, caught 11 balls. Really, he's one of our most reliable, most dependable players.

"[Then] we made the decision to extend James a year ahead of free agency [after the 2016 season], and his role is as important as any player on our team. He played 30 or 40 percent of the time. I think we had 274 third-down plays for the entire season and he was on the field for 171 or 172 of those, and he missed two games. Those roles are really, really important. Do they play 60-70-80 percent of the game? No, but without that player, you better have somebody that can actually fill that role because if you don't you have to go outside and find it."

At that point of the panel, MacMullan mentioned Patriots Hall of Famer Kevin Faulk as a similar example, before transitioning to slot receivers, and how that role -- similar to the passing-game running back -- had similar value to the Patriots.

Caserio detailed how the Patriots targeted slot receiver Wes Welker in 2007, changing from a two-receiver offense the previous few years to more of a three-receiver offense.

"The way the game is played inside the formation and the perimeter of the field are two totally different things," Caserio said on the panel. "That's been an important position in our offense, going back to Troy Brown, and then when we brought Wes in ... Julian [Edelman] is a combination player and the guy the past [few] years is 'DA', [Danny] Amendola. He's been as good, probably, as a slot receiver as we've had in our system. It's an important position, an important player, and it's similar to what we're talking about with James White: A specific role, it can be a big role, a small role, and there is a cost associated with it."

2. One point Caserio made on the panel that serves as a reminder of time passed: When the Patriots assigned the franchise tag on Welker in 2012, it was at a value of $9.5 million. The franchise tag figure for receivers in 2018 is around $17 million. "You're talking about double in the span of less than 10 years," he said.

3. Two more nuggets of insight from Caserio at MIT's Sloan Sports Analytics Conference:

On creating a culture of empowerment in the front office . "All of us can probably speak to this to some degree; when you're in a leadership/management position, the No. 1 quality you have to have in that position is humility and grace. You have to be willing to engage the people you work with, and you have to listen. I read this somewhere recently: It's not about where the idea comes from or how it gets to you, if it's good, it's good. To give your people the opportunity to do that and express their opinions and express their viewpoints, that goes a long way. We've been fortunate the way things have been structured, it's really organizationally -- whether it's coaching, playing, scouting, personnel -- we've been able to bring people in on the ground level, train them and develop them in our system. Some of them have gone on to other places and are running other organizations, and we've had a lot of people that [elevated with us] -- one of them is our college director [Monti Ossenfort]. ... Giving those people an opportunity to be involved in the process, engage them in the process ... everyone's position in the organization is critical. We couldn't operate without each other. That's the truth."

On turning the page to a new season: "Each year is its own year, its own entity. The year we had this year, we're actually going through our evaluation process now and kind of looking forward to the 2018 season. There are some players whose contracts are set to expire and we're going to have to make a decision, 'Do we keep the player? Do we move on from the player? Is there another alternative?' There is a tremendous amount of turnover each year; you're going to have anywhere from 20-25 new players that come on to your roster, whether it's through free agency, the draft, post-draft free agency. So you're going to have a lot of new players, you're going to lose a lot of players, and I think we're realistic from the standpoint of, 'Look, we understand we're going to lose players. We can't keep everybody. ... You have to manage your team within the salary-cap structure.' ... I would say there is a cost component that certainly comes into play relative to their role and relative to the replacement cost or replacement player behind them. ... There are a lot of dynamics that are involved and we kind of start with a blank slate each year. We're fortunate and lucky that we've had an opportunity to win some games and we had a great season; it kind of came up short a little bit in the end. But we all realize that 2018 is going to be an entirely different season and we're in the process now of starting to put that team together. It's not to be callous, but just to kind of turn the page and realize we have to move forward -- once we make a decision we can't look back."

4. Patriots coaches officially got back to work last week, and that includes offensive line coach Dante Scarnecchia. That was one of the top questions many had in the aftermath of Super Bowl LII and is one of the top positive developments for the team since the disappointing loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Scarnecchia just turned 70 and barring something unexpected, he should be back on the sidelines for the 2018 season.

5. For Patriots fans looking to the combine to focus on defensive prospects, Sunday (March 4) and Monday (March 5) are the big days. Here is a snapshot look at the workout schedule:

Friday: Running backs, offensive linemen, kickers/punters/special teams

Saturday: Quarterbacks, wide receivers, tight ends

Sunday: Defensive linemen, linebackers

Monday: Defensive backs

As is the norm, a variety of NFL head coaches and personnel men will answer questions from reporters, but the Patriots aren't currently on the schedule (along with the New Orleans Saints, they traditionally don't have availability). Still, there will be no shortage of those with Patriots ties taking part, including first-year Lions coach Matt Patricia (Wednesday, 10:45 a.m.), first-year Titans coach Mike Vrabel (Wednesday, 11:30 a.m.) and fifth-year Texans coach Bill O'Brien (Wednesday, 3:30 p.m.).

6. The combine also is the time when player agents have their annual meeting, which provides a chance for teams to speak with them about free-agents-to-be. It isn't a surprise, at this point, that the Patriots and agents for some of their top free agents haven't seemed to have substantial talks since the season ended. There is still time to do so, and the Patriots have also shown they aren't afraid to wait until closer to free agency to let the market take shape before truly showing their financial hand.

7. Bill Belichick enters his 19th season as Patriots coach, and there haven't been many stories, if any, that have lingered like his decision not to play cornerback Malcolm Butler in Super Bowl LII. Hardly a day has passed this month without some mention of it from Patriots followers (such as this one via Twitter), and when players have been interviewed (e.g. Devin McCourty on Sirius XM NFL Radio on Friday), it's been one of the first questions asked. The pursuit and desire for more clarity remains strong, as the idea that it was a pure football decision is hard to buy.

8. Did You Know: The Patriots have been awarded 35 compensatory draft picks from 1994-2018, which is the fourth highest total in the NFL behind Baltimore (49), Green Bay (42) and Dallas (41).

9. Listening to media draft analysts such as NFL Network's Mike Mayock and ESPN's Todd McShay and Mel Kiper helps provide a general feel for the strength of the current year's draft crop, and here were a few nuggets from Kiper's conference call Thursday:

"This is a bad year for receivers in the first round, but a really good year for receivers in the second through fifth round."

"This is a bad, bad year for down defensive ends … in the early part [of the draft]."

"I think there are plenty of [quarterback] options from the late first through the third-fourth round … Kyle Lauletta from Richmond, Luke Falk from Washington State, Mike White from Western Kentucky, Chase Litton from Marshall."

"[Washington State's Hercules] Mata'afa is a versatile pass-rusher, you saw him line up everywhere, like a Rob Ninkovich-type. … Luke Falk has kind of patterned himself, his hero has been Tom Brady. You see a little Brady in that delivery."

"There's some really good [running] backs you can pick up in the middle rounds."

10. The Patriots' re-signing of veteran running back Brandon Bolden is the type of depth move that the team has made part of its annual modus operandi when rosters expand to 90 players in the offseason. Bolden's impact on offense has lessened in recent years, but here's the number to consider when analyzing his value to the club: 271. That's how many special-teams snaps Bolden played in the 2017 regular season. He finished with eight tackles, tied for the second on the Patriots.