What week is it in this A.J. Brown saga? It feels like we have to track it by months at this point. It's been a long time.

At this point, it's difficult to even think/feel/believe/want anything to specific to come from the situation, other than for it to end one way or the other. That tends to happen when a much-ballyhooed trade seems to involve much more smoke than fire. 

With that in mind, though, I did want to provide one bit of perspective when it comes to the actual cost of acquiring A.J. Brown for the Patriots. The words "first-round pick" can mean a whole lot of things, so I thought it best to zero in on the exact area in the first round that the Patriots own their pick this year to try to provide some detail on the caliber of player that gets taken that late in the first. That way, perhaps we'll all be able to determine how we feel about coughing up a first-round pick, if that is indeed the high end of the asking price for Brown.

Plus, some thoughts on Red Sox owner John Henry oddly breaking his yearslong Twitter silence, an unlikely performance from the Celtics' impressive win over the Thunder, and the Bruins' handling of top prospect James Hagens turning pro.

--This will not be a scientific endeavor, but merely one to shed a different light on what's at stake in a potential A.J. Brown trade. There are some who might never even consider trading a first-round pick, no matter the circumstances. Others may be willing to dish them out whenever the opportunity to acquire game-changing talent arises.

But as we all know, not all first-round picks are made the same. And with the Patriots owning the 31st overall pick, I decided to look back at the last decade of players picked between No. 30 and No. 33. According to the Jimmy Johnson NFL Draft value chart, No. 30 is worth 620 points, and No. 33 is worth 580. The parameters are a bit arbitrary, sure, but it felt worthwhile to include the first pick of the second round in there. 

The goal of the exercise is to answer the simple question: Would you trade having this player on your roster for four or five years in exchange for, say, three years of A.J. Brown?

While that conclusion will be subjective, I'll also use Pro Football Reference's weighted career approximate value to help apply an objective measure to determine whether picks were big hits, big misses, or somewhere in between.

With that setup now complete, here are those players.

The Big Hits

Lamar Jackson, QB, BAL
T.J. Watt, LB, PIT
Landon Collins, S, NYG
Ryan Ramczyk, T, NO
Tee Higgins, WR, CIN
Emmanuel Ogbah, DE, CLE
Kaleb McGary, T, ATL
Byron Murphy, CB, MIN
Germain Ifedi, G, SEA
Gregory Rousseau, DL, BUF
George Karlaftis, DE, KC

Of course, Baltimore drafting Lamar Jackson -- a two-time league MVP, three-time First Team All-Pro, and four-time Pro Bowler -- with the 32nd overall pick in the 2018 draft will go down as one of the greatest draft steals of all time. He is the exception among exceptions to this exercise.

Though T.J. Watt -- eight-time Pro Bowler, four-time First Team All-Pro, and one-time Defensive Player of the Year who shared the NFL's single-season sack record with Michael Strahan until Myles Garrett set a new standard this past year --  is not far behind, having been selected by Pittsburgh with the 30th overall pick in 2017.

Outside of maybe Tee Higgins and Landon Collins, the rest of the list may lack major star power but includes solid, high-end contributors who proved to have been extremely valuable on their rookie contracts. ("Value" does have to play a role in this equation, after all.)

Of the 40 players looked at in this exercise, 11 made the "Big Hits" list. We all struggle with mathematics from time to time, but even I feel comfortable saying that's a touch above 25 percent. (The handy calculator application informs me that it's 27.5 percent, to be precise.)

The Big Misses

Lewis Cine, DB, MIN
Kevin Dodd, DE, TEN
Reuben Foster, LB, SF
Deandre Baker, CB, NYG
N'Keal Harry, WR, NE
Noah Igbinoghene, CB, MIA
Felix Anudike-Uzomah, DE, KC
Stephone Anthony, LB, NO

There shouldn't be a ton of debate on this part of the list, as the majority of the players have done little or nothing in the NFL, despite getting the requisite extra chance or two that accompanies being a high draft pick.

Lewis Cine was the last pick of the first round in 2018, and he ended up taking 10 career defensive snaps. Kevin Dodd was the first pick of the second round in 2016, coming off a 12-sack season at Clemson. He registered one sack as a rookie and didn't play beyond his second year. Patriots fans need no reminders about N'Keal Harry, who caught 57 passes for 598 yards and four touchdowns over three seasons for New England.

You get the idea. There's no doubt about this part of the list, which includes eight of the 40 players, or 20 percent. That means the odds are slightly better to land a hit than a miss.

(Note: Cornerback Jeff Gladney, who died in a car crash in 2022, was not used for the purpose of evaluation in this exercise.)

The In-Betweens

Malcom Brown, DT, NE
Austin Corbett, C, CLE
Tyson Campbell, DB, JAX
Damarious Randall, S, GB
Sony Michel, RB, NE
Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, OLB, TB
Logan Hall, DE, TB 
Clyde Edwards-Helaire, RB, KC
Mike Hughes, CB, MIN
Odafe Oweh, DE, BAL
Nolan Smith, OLB, PHI
Joey Porter Jr., CB, PIT
Kevin King, CB, GB
Daxton Hill, DB, CIN
Vernon Butler, DT, CAR
Will Levis, QB, TEN
Nate Wiggins, CB, BAL 
Ricky Pearsall, WR, SF 
Xavier Legette, WR, CAR
Keon Coleman, WR, BUF

The largest group of this exercise invites the most debate. Either "that guy's awful!" or "he's way better than that!" could be shouted about some of them, I'm sure. But the point is this: These are all NFL players who contributed or continue to contribute at differing degrees of impact. If you're building a 53-man roster, these are players who are useful to that goal ... but they're probably not considered game-changers.

This group accounted for half of the group -- 20 out of 40 -- and helped illustrate that a "first-round pick" can mean something very different than it seems on the surface.

The Too-Soons/Miscellaneous

Maxwell Hariston, CB, BUF
Jihaad Campbell, LB, PHI
Josh Simmons, T, KC
Carson Schwesinger, LB, CLE

This was last year's crop of picks from No. 30-33, and it's obviously too soon to place value one way or the other on the players just yet. At this point, though, Carson Schwesinger -- the Defensive Rookie of the Year -- looks like the best of the young lot.

A fun fact: The second round in 2020 after the group of Igbinoghene, Gladney, Edwards-Helaire and Higgins was stacked with talent. Michael Pittman Jr., D’Andre Swift, Xavier McKinney and Kyle Dugger went next, with Miami guard Robert Hunt going a couple of picks after Dugger. Jonathan Taylor was taken 41st and Cole Kmet went at 43. Safety Antoine Winfield Jr. went at No. 45, one pick after Grant Delpit. Jalen Hurts was the 79th pick, while Ezra Cleveland and Jeremy Chinn closed out the round. The first round had tons of talent that year (Justin Jefferson, CeeDee Lamb, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Tristan Wirfs, Jordan Love, etc.) but the collective of that second round might be an even match overall.

Another fun fact: After the run of receivers -- Pearsall, Legette, Coleman -- in the late first/early second two years ago, Ladd McConkey went 34th to the Chargers (thanks to a trade with the Patriots). McConkey has clearly been the best pick of that lot.

The Conclusion

Well, that's up to you now, isn't it? When it comes to trading a first-round pick, there's