“I had a meeting with [head coach Aaron Glenn] and my family and after that meeting I was like ‘So who are we thinking for our first second-round pick?’ ” Cooper said, via the team’s website. “He said ‘We’re thinking either O-lineman or DB … I like your guy D’Angelo Ponds, he kind of reminds me of myself.’ “I said ‘Go get ’em.‘”

Cooper said going against Ponds last year in practice every day made him a better receiver.

“When I [first saw Ponds] I thought ‘oh he’s really short,’ ” Cooper said. “But once you play against him, he’s all of the above: he’s smart, he’s fast, he’s aggressive, he’s not just going to let you push him around. It kind of shocked me at first, but he helped me grow as a receiver just going against, I would say, the best DB in college football last year.”

Cooper recalled the first spring practice when Ponds was going full speed and made a play on the ball.

“I’m running a 10 yard out-route and I’m catching it and I’m like alright, toe-tap, get in bounds but he comes in swipes, undercut,” Cooper said about the first practice last spring when they didn’t have shoulder pads on yet. “I was like, ‘Man, first practice?’ and I was lowkey a little mad but at the end of the day, he was competing and he let me know it wasn’t, just because it was the first day, it wasn’t going to be easy.”

Patriots

• Jeremy Fowler polled anonymous coaches and executives around the league, who listed veteran DT Milton Williams among the league’s best defensive tackles: “New England has an anchor up front, and the defense wasn’t the same without him,” an NFL personnel evaluator said. “Explosive, strong and great effort player. And you can move him all around the defensive front and he can be effective.”
• On the cornerback list, Christian Gonzalez received both his flowers and a knock from one anonymous evaluator: “He shut everything down when we played him,” said an NFL offensive coach. “We couldn’t squeeze a drop. He was the main reason why. Size, ball skills, can play press or man, he’s got it all.”
• “His game is a bit finesse at times,” one NFL personnel evaluator noted. “But he’s got tons of traits — long, can run and cover. The idea of the position is to cover the other guy, and he can do that very well.”
• Patriots WR A.J. Brown was voted as the ninth-best receiver in the NFL in a poll by coaches, execs and scouts around the league: “He changes the coverages people play, everything will be rolled his way, and it will lighten the box for Josh [McDaniels] to really get the run game going,” one coordinator said. “He gives them run-after-catch explosion and isolation down the field on 50-50 plays that they didn’t have.” (Fowler)