Most years, any NFL team would be thrilled to have the first pick in the draft.

Not this year.

“I think this is a draft where there doesn’t appear to be a clear-cut, No. 1 player,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. “To me, it’s a little bit like the ’91 draft, when I was in Cleveland.”

Ah, yes, the NFL Draft of 1991. Not exactly a vintage year.

“The Patriots,” Belichick recalled, “traded out of that [top pick] to Dallas. Dallas traded up and, the first few picks there were, I don’t think there was any consensus on the order of those players, and Russell Maryland was a little bit of a surprise choice at No. 1.

“That was a draft,” said Belichick, who was coaching in Cleveland then, “that, as it turned out, there were a lot of players in the second round — the Brett Favres, the Roman Phifers, guys like that — that probably had better careers than a lot of guys in the first round of that draft. There was probably about a third of that first round that I don’t know if they lasted three years in the league.”

That’s the thing about the NFL Draft — it’s not until years later that a true evaluation can be made on how good it was.

“What really means something,” said Belichick, who’ll be drafting seventh overall on Saturday, courtesy of a draft-day deal last year with the San Francisco 49ers, “is a year or two down the road — whether the player you’ve taken can do what you selected them to do. If he can, then that’s a good pick. If he can’t, then it really isn’t. What we want to try to make sure is that we get the most value for our pick, and that’s a very inexact science. Sometimes you’re right and sometimes you’re wrong.”

Belichick and the Browns were both right and wrong in the early rounds of that ’91 draft.

As for the Patriots, well, there were reasons they were drafting first overall that year, following a disastrous, 1-15 season in 1990.

There was, in fact, a consensus No. 1 pick that year. The player that the Patriots, and just about every other NFL team, wanted was Raghib “Rocket” Ismail, the game-breaking, kick-returning, wide receiver out of Notre Dame.

The Pats, then owned by Victor Kiam, who put Sam Jankovich in charge, negotiated extensively with Ismail before the draft, offering him nearly $9 million over five years. When that wasn’t enough, they traded the rights to the No. 1 pick to Dallas, in exchange for the Cowboys’ two first-round choices (11 and 14) and three journeymen players — linebackers Eugene Lockhart and David Howard, along with defensive back Ron Francis, who never played a down in New England.

But not even the Cowboys were prepared to match the $18 million, payable over four years, Ismail was offered by the Toronto Argonauts. So Ismail went off to Canada — where he was MVP of the Grey Cup game as a rookie, returning a kickoff 87 yards for a touchdown as Toronto defeated Calgary for the CFL championship — and Dallas drafted Maryland, a defensive tackle who had been a force for the Miami Hurricanes.

Although Maryland played for 10 years in the NFL, only the first five were in Dallas. He had 4½ sacks as a rookie and never exceeded that total the rest of career, which also included four seasons with the Raiders and one, his last, in Green Bay. He was voted to just one Pro Bowl, in 1993 — hardly what would be expected from the first player taken in the draft.

As for Belichick and the Browns, who had the second pick — they did well by taking talented safety Eric Turner, who tied for the league lead with nine interceptions in 1994 when Cleveland made the playoffs (and beat Bill Parcells’ Patriots in the opening round.) Sadly, Turner, who had 30 career interceptions in 109 games with the Browns, Ravens, and Raiders, died of cancer at the age of 31.

The Patriots used their pair of first-round picks to take offensive tackle Pat Harlow, who started 64 games over six seasons in New England, and running back Leonard Russell, who led the team in rushing as a rookie, and again in 1993, when he ran for 1,088 yards and 7 TDs on 300 carries. But, after going to Denver in ’94, Russell lasted only three more years in the league, bouncing from the Broncos, to the Rams, and, finally, to San Diego.

There were two quarterbacks taken in the first round in ’91, and both were busts — Dan McGwire, the brother of steroid-pumped slugger Mark McGwire, and Todd Marinovich, who had drug issues of his own.

Still available that year when the Browns drafted second in the second round, 29th overall, was a strong-armed QB from Southern Mississippi by the name of Brett Favre. Belichick bypassed him in favor of an offensive lineman — Ed King of Auburn.

The Falcons wound up taking Favre four picks later, but then, since they already had, ahem, Chris Miller, traded Favre to the Packers the following year for the 19th pick in the first round, which Atlanta used to select Tony Smith, a running back out of Southern Mississippi. Primarily as a punt and kick returner during his three years with the Falcons, Smith will not be joining Favre in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

As Belichick said, it’s not an exact science.

That’s the problem with having the first pick in year when there is no obvious superstar — the top pick expects to be paid like one, even if he isn’t.

jdonalds@projo.com