Caserio, who often is in charge of scouting the upcoming opponent, was able to split his job during the season between pro and college responsibilities.
“I spend a fair amount of time on the road in the fall to see X amount of players,’’ he said. “The way technology works with the video, everything is online, so I was able to go back and watch all the East-West practices and all Senior Bowl practices so you can get a little more familiar. A lot of those players we’ve seen during the fall.’’
Caserio said the scouting staff was set to meet this past week to “have another run-through of other prospects’’ before heading to the scouting combine Feb. 22.
Caserio seemed fine with the Patriots’ current stock of picks: two in the first round (27th and 31st), two in the second, and one each in the third and fourth.
“We’ll see how it goes,’’ he said. “Where we’re picking, that pool of players is going to be a little bit different than maybe last year because we were sitting at 17. We could stay, we could move. A lot depends on how we feel about the players at those spots.’’
Caserio said this draft looks to be strong in certain areas.
“It looks like there are some pretty good front-seven players, which a lot of them were down in Mobile [Ala., at the Senior Bowl], a pretty fair amount,’’ Caserio said. “The receivers position, looks like there’s some pretty good players in that group. There are going to be good football players in every round, it’s just a matter of finding them.’’
Caserio agreed that the South cornerbacks at the Senior Bowl - namely Janoris Jenkins (North Alabama), Brandon Boykin (Georgia), and Dwight Bentley (Louisiana-Lafayette) - were impressive.
