While every other team in the league keeps trying to acquire talent and waits for that talent to bail them out, the Patriots are busy coaching up what they have knowing that as perennial contenders they will never draft very high. Then when those players outperform and leave for more money the Pats get rewarded with compensatory picks. They have a culture where the only star is Brady and everyone else has humbled himself to his role on the team. You can tell that they have a culture of unselfishness where the rest of the league tries to acquire enough stars for a title run only to blow it up when salary cap hell sets in.
Rex Ryan misused Gilmore and Mario Williams just to name a few because his scheme was more important than using players to their best potential.