NFL Free Agency Thread

[primetime]

Yes. Just ignore the fact that Wallace's stats fell drastically during his final season with Pitt..

Wallace missed a few games, as did Roethlisberger that season (Charlie Batch started a few games). He was also competing for targets with an emerging Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders.

 

[Kontradiction]

Knowing my luck, when I start working on my powerpoint presentation that is due tonight, the Patriots will sign someone then I won't be able to concentrate!

Why don't you work on it now, then?

 

[Ross12]

I don't know what everyone's problem is, we still have my boy Chris Harper on the roster so what's the issue?

 

[Kontradiction]

Wallace missed a few games, as did Roethlisberger that season (Charlie Batch started a few games). He was also competing for targets with an emerging Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders.

I'm not the biggest Wallace advocate at all. As a matter of fact, I haven't mentioned him once. But he'd be pretty dangerous with the ball in his hands in some of the bubble screens the Pats run. He'd also make it so opposing defenses can't just load 8 in the box consistently. My concern is that his route tree is very limited.

 

[ViperGTS]

I'm bored.

The scary thing is nothing has been done to upgrade last years team, yet. They've released guys but no replacements.

Still a chance though.

 

[Clonamery]

I'm not the biggest Wallace advocate at all. As a matter of fact, I haven't mentioned him once. But he'd be pretty dangerous with the ball in his hands in some of the bubble screens the Pats run. He'd also make it so opposing defenses can't just load 8 in the box consistently. My concern is that his route tree is very limited.

It's a tree without branches.

 

[Deus Irae]

According to who? The point of Forte was to give them more of a receiving threat who can run the football with a little more umph.

For $4m/yr is Forte really worth 15-20 touches a game?

Yes

 

[DaBruinz]

A common misconception is that the team needs to literally cover the entire salaries of all rookies.

That's not actually true, because most of those salaries are already part of the cap. As a rule of thumb, teams only need to cover the signing bonus prorations of players taken in the first four rounds; for the Pats this year, that's about $1M.

Not sure what misconception you think I have. After the final cut-downs, teams have to the money available to cover exactly what I said. This is the same thing that Miguel has said time and again as well.

 

[Ring 6]

No one is debating the potency of last year's offense.

But the point remains, you cannot count on the team from the start of the season to the playoffs, to remain healthy and be the exact same. Injuries can, will and do happen and you have to have depth, much more so than we did last season. You can't have Brady throwing to Martin, Dobson and a backup TE again.

Your argument then should be to get rid of Edelman and Gronk because you don't think they are reliable.
You can't get starters on the bench who will only play if there are injuries.
Every team has pieces that are less at the end of the season due to injuries, and they all play backups and don't have starters sitting around on the bench.

 

[fnordcircle]

It would seem to me that cutting/restructuring Amendola and cutting Cannon should be the orders of the day then.

Amendola is a bargain compared to some of these deals, so I dunno what cutting him would accomplish.

 

[BradyFTW!]

Living in NY, I get to see a lot of Giant's games, Randle looked pretty good last year. He's not a superstar, but a serviceable #3 or #4 receiver. Would be a decent replacement for Lafell. I could see him putting up Lafell type numbers (2014 version) with more playing time, has good size and would be a decent red zone target.

I would agree if he was healthy, he produces in-game in the Giants' offense. The problem is that he has chronic knee issues, which make him unable to hold up to a regular practice schedule. The Giants compensated for that by closely managing his practice time the last couple of years. They could do that because he's had enough time in the offense that he knows his role fine.

Now try putting him in the Patriots' offense with that same limitation on practice time. The Pats' offense is difficult for WRs to pick up under the best circumstances, so I think Randle's inability to put in anything close to a full practice load is a dealbreaker for us.

 

[Kontradiction]

Amendola is a bargain compared to some of these deals, so I dunno what cutting him would accomplish.

I would rather restructure him, personally. But he makes way too much for what he's brought to the table, 2014 playoffs aside. I suspect that's at least part of the reason for the interest in Hogan.

 

[fnordcircle]

So when our 3 most injury prone players were healthy? Yeah, let's just hope they are all healthy this year. That couldn't possibly backfire in any way.

Yeah, **** locking up our existing players let's sink $40m into a warm body - which is seriously the only thing available this offseason other than aging vets.

 

[KDPPatsfan85]

Why don't you work on it now, then?

Have you tried doing school work with an 18 month old daughter and 4 year old autistic son? I can only get it done when they are asleep. Luckily, my wife is taking the kids to her parent's house for dinner so I can get it done!

 

[Kontradiction]

It's a tree without branches.

He can run the 9 and 8 routes pretty well.

 

[Deus Irae]

I think it's kind of a red flag that Matthews isn't confident he can beat out Amendola. If he could just do that, he would've seen more targets here than in Tennessee. Oh well, hard to be too critical of a guy who's just looking for an opportunity to play and establish his value.

Guys make up all sorts of excuses about why they signed where they signed. It's almost always the money, but they don't want to appear as if that's the case. Is it possible that money wasn't the reason for Matthews? Sure.


But money was probably the reason for Matthews.

 

[Kontradiction]

Have you tried doing school work with an 18 month old daughter and 4 year old autistic son? I can only get it done when they are asleep. Luckily, my wife is taking the kids to her parent's house for dinner so I can get it done!

Fair enough. I'm in grad school while working full time and that's hard enough. I can't imagine doing it with two kids.

 

[DaBruinz]

Wallace missed a few games, as did Roethlisberger that season (Charlie Batch started a few games). He was also competing for targets with an emerging Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders.

Wallace missed 1 game. He wasn't competing with Brown for touches as Brown had been on the team with him in 2011 when they both posted over 1100 yards receiving.

Roethlisberger missed 3 games and part of a 4th. 2 of the games were against Baltimore, one against Cleveland, and the game he was injured in was KC.

Wallace was held out of the week 17 game.

 

[Joey007]

The scary thing is nothing has been done to upgrade last years team, yet. They've released guys but no replacements.

Still a chance though.

Still a chance?

Our biggest moves the last two years weren't on the first day. Silence at the very beginning is nothing new.

 

[patsbrasilpatriotas]

Even with all this crazy money ... The worst contract is ... 4.8m for a TERRIBLE backup