01:00 AM EDT on Monday, April 26, 2004

FOXBORO -- There was a time not too long ago when the Patriots wouldn't even consider players with skeletons in their closets.

This week, the team added two players who've been on the wrong side of the law -- running back Corey Dillon and one of yesterday's fourth-round picks, Cedric Cobbs. Dillon's multiple juvenile arrests and three arrests while in the league have been well-documented. The last one was in 2000. Cobbs, meanwhile, was arrested for drunken driving/possession of marijuana before his junior season at Arkansas.

Asked yesterday if the team has changed its philosophy on drafting players with checkered pasts, head coach Bill Belichick said, "We look into all the players we draft. Obviously, if we draft them, we're ready to bring them on to the Patriots team. We're going to evaluate them on a 'moving forward' basis. We've all done whatever we've done in the past. I'm not defending it, but we look at all the players as they come on our team and we evaluate their performance and actions on the Patriots. That's the way we look at it, moving forward. I don't want to try to judge everybody on what happened in the past. We haven't changed our philosophy."

Undrafted free agents

The Patriots expect to add about 10 undrafted free agents by the weekend, according to Belichick. The process with these players is often a little more drawn out as the players and their agents try to find the best situations in terms of chances to make a team.

The rookies will report to Foxboro on Thursday for a mini-camp next weekend.

Quieter than usual

The Patriots normally deal quite a bit on draft day. They'd made 16 deals during the draft over the past two seasons. Belichick said it wasn't a disappointment the team didn't add picks for next year.

"The only reason you have those picks is to take players," Belichick pointed out. "We took them and we feel good about the ones we took. I would imagine next year we will have some compensatory picks."

The Patriots should at least get a pick from the league in return for the free-agent departure of offensive lineman Damien Woody, who signed with Detroit. He was a first-round pick in 1999.