Bill Belichick left the NFL world scratching their heads when he selected Cole Strange with the 29th overall pick in the NFL Draft last month. If you want to know how unexpected the decision was, just ask the former Chattanooga offensive lineman.
Strange’s father Greg told Chris Mason of MLive.com this week that Cole got a call from an unknown number at around 11 p.m. on the first night of the NFL Draft. He put the phone on speaker. Greg said Cole’s initial reaction was that someone was pranking him.
“(Cole) said, ‘Sir, I don’t mean to be disrespectful at all, but I’ve gotta know because I’ve got some crazy friends. Is this a prank?’” Greg recalled. “The guy said, ‘Hold on just a second.’ And then Bill Belichick got on the phone and of course, unless you’ve been under a rock for the last 20 years, you know Bill Belichick’s voice.”
Greg said he and Cole both felt much better after hearing from Belichick himself. He said Belichick even gave his son some friendly ribbing when things quieted down.
“Belichick is sitting there and when we got through, the first break he had, he said, ‘Hey Cole, you’ve gotta act like you’ve been there, man.’ It was classic to us,” Greg said. “We absolutely loved it.”
Almost everyone outside of the Patriots’ draft room was stunned by the Strange pick. Rams head coach Sean McVay and general manager Les Snead probably had the best reaction.
The 6-foot-5, 307-pound Strange impressed teams in drills at the Scouting Combine earlier this offseason. Belichick told reporters after the first round that Strange “wouldn’t have lasted much longer,” but even the Strange family probably disagrees.
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