The second day of the NFL draft is usually a bore, but the New England Patriots injected some excitement into the proceedings and became the draft’s big winners yesterday when they traded their fourth-round pick to the Oakland Raiders for wide receiver Randy Moss.

Moss is the most physically gifted receiver of his generation, but off-field problems and lackadaisical work habits have plagued his career. In fact, this is the third time that Moss’s combination of talent and attitude made him one of the focal points of the NFL draft. In 1998, when Moss entered the league, he dropped from a projected top 5 pick all the way to the 21st pick because of concerns about his character. And in 2005, the Raiders made biggest move of the off-season when they traded the seventh pick in the draft to the Vikings in exchange for Moss.

The Patriots, at first, seem like an odd fit for Moss. New England has built a three-time Super Bowl champion by eschewing the Mosses of the football world for teamfirst players, and yesterday’s trade was a step in the opposite direction. But Moss agreed to restructure his contract to lessen the financial investment the team is making in him, and if he doesn’t play hard, the Patriots can always cut him, having lost only a fourthround pick.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick has experience with players who combine rare talent with character concerns. As a Giants assistant in the 1980s he coached Lawrence Taylor, the prime example of talent mixed with trouble. More recently, in 2004 the Patriots traded for the disgruntled Cincinnati Bengals running back Corey Dillon, who spent three productive years in New England and was never the locker room cancer he was portrayed as in Cincinnati.

Even if Moss is a model citizen, he might never again be the player he was in the first six years of his career, when he made five Pro Bowls. Moss turned 30 in February, and he’s coming off a 2006 season in which he had career lows in catches (42), yards (553) and touchdowns (three). But even a diminished Moss can improve the passing game in New England. The Patriots have had a great off-season, and now they’re the favorites to win the Super Bowl.

In addition to New England, here are the other winners — and the losers — of this weekend’s draft.

WINNERS

1. Cleveland ‘s Browns. Cleveland’s front office would have been happy with either Wisconsin tackle Joe Thomas or Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn as the Browns’ first-round pick. To draft both of them was a major coup, although the Browns paid a steep price in trading next year’s firstround pick to Dallas. The Browns’ great draft will put pressure on Cleveland coach Romeo Crennel to show real progress in 2007.

2. Peyton Manning. Everyone assumed the Colts’ priorities would be defense, defense, and defense. Instead, Indianapolis drafted another weapon for Manning in the first round, adding Ohio State’s Anthony Gonzalez to an already stellar receiving corps. The Colts chose another Ohio State wide receiver, Roy Hall, in the fifth round, and he could be one of the steals of the draft. He’s a good athlete who had few opportunities at Ohio State because the Buckeyes had Gonzalez and Ted Ginn Jr. (the Dolphins’ first-round pick) ahead of him.

3. The Jets’ trading partners. The general manager , Mike . Tannenbaum, demonstrated Saturday how much he likes to trade draft picks. In the first round he shipped first-, second-, and fifth-round picks to Carolina to move up and draft cornerback Darrelle Revis. In the second round he shipped second-, third-, and sixthround picks to Green Bay to move up and draft linebacker David Harris. If Revis and Harris are starting for the Jets for the next five or 10 years, those trades will prove to be worth the price for Tannenbaum. But the acquisition of extra picks seems to give Carolina and Green Bay the edge in those trades.

LOSERS

1. Detroit Lions. Georgia Tech’s Calvin Johnson is such a good prospect that the Lions general manager, Matt Millen, can be forgiven for taking a wide receiver with a Top 10 pick for the fourth time in five years. But Detroit is so bad in so many different positions that it needs immediate help, and instead Millen spent all three of his second-round picks on longterm projects instead of adding players who can help immediately.

2. Cornerbacks. NFL general managers have always considered cornerback a higher-profile position than safety, but that is starting to change. The latest piece of evidence is that this year more cornerbacks than safeties were chosen in the first round. NFL teams are increasingly running defensive schemes that rely heavily on rangy, athletic safeties who are fast enough to cover wide receivers and strong enough to play like linebackers against the run. College safeties with that set of skills are in great demand.

3. Eli Manning. A left tackle to protect Manning’s blind side is the Giants’ most glaring need, but the general manager, Jerry Reese, waited until the sixth round to take an offensive lineman. That lineman, Adam Koets, started every game at left tackle the last three years for Oregon State, but he’ll need some seasoning before he can start in the NFL. Reese did draft a wide receiver for Manning, Steve Smith of USC, in the second round, but Smith doesn’t seem like a good fit. Manning has a tendency to throw high passes, and he’s best when he has tall receivers like Plaxico Burress going up to get the ball. Smith is 5-foot-11. Reese did get some good defensive players, including first-round cornerback Aaron Ross of Texas, third-round lineman Jay Alford of Penn State, and fourth-round linebacker Zak DeOssie of Brown. But if Manning doesn’t have any time to pass this season, Reese will regret not choosing an offensive lineman earlier.

Mr. Smith is a writer for FootballOutsiders.com.