***** The official "Danny Amendola sucks!" thread *****

I like Danny Amendola. He did well when he was with the RAMS and that probably played a huge part in Bringing him to NE. I understand that last season he didn't do as well with the Pats, but I still think he's a pretty good wide receiver. He may not be as good as Wes Welker at the moment. However, in time there's a possibility that may change.

Some may call it excuses, but I do feel there are legitimate reasons why Danny hasn't done as well. The biggest reason is that he completely tore the tendon muscle from his groin. Had he not torn his groin muscle, he probably would have done much better than he has. I feel some people are too hard on the poor guy and should try to give the young man a chance. The guy does his best given the circumstances and wants to help the team.

Some say that other football players have played with injury and have done better than Danny. That may be true, but people need to remember everyone's body is different. Some people can play through injury better than others. The person's genetics, environment, health etc all play into how well someone deals with an injury. At the end of the day how or if the person heals from their injury, illness, aliment etc is ultimately in God's hands.


What I think is great though is how Danny is using his platform to help other people and he is doing that with his charity catches for kids. His acts of kindness just go to show that there really are good people in this world and that there is more to life than winning football games. Don't get me wrong winning football games is important, but what most people will remember any football player for in the long run is the type of character they had and the impact they had on other people.

Anyways that just my two cents. Great thread Deus!


http://charactercounts.org/pdf/WhatWillMatter.pdf
A small excerpt of the poem I linked above.

"What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched,
empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.What will matter is not your competence but your character."

Bruins29 said:

I am done with it. Its useless. If you need to get the last word in, go ahead.

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I do not have a problem with you debating what I say about Amendola, you do that whenever you want, but you get frustrated when I do not turn around and say “your right”. Then you become argumentative and start telling me I am bad and sending me to time out, and I am to blame for the downfall of Patsfans.com and the reason Hernandez is a serial killer. That is pointless because then I become defensive and we talk about stuff that does not matter, stick to the subject, and I will too and it will not be pointless it will be what is supposed to happen on this site, fans debating football.

Brady6 said:

What is the issue with that? I cannot believe that Edelman is a better player, that is bad behavior?

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Brady6 said:

I, but you get frustrated when I do not turn around and say “your right”.

Then you become argumentative and start telling me I am bad and sending me to time out,

and I am to blame for the downfall of Patsfans.com and the reason Hernandez is a serial killer.

.

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Bruins29 said:

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Bruins29 said:

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Brady6 said:

The season was not that impressive; he had a completion percentage of under 60% and threw 12 interceptions. It was overhyped much like Amendola’s game in week 1 of the season.

Now I look at a player who has 6 seasons in the NFL and has a career high of 689 yards in a season, is still in single digits for career touchdowns, and averages less than 10 yards a catch. What I see is an average run of the mill slot receiver who has 4-5 very good games in his 6 year career so people think that he can do that 16 games a season and lean on some injury for a reason that it has not happen. Here is the thing though, part of being a good player is training your body to sustain through an entire season, will there be season when a freak injury occurs or you take a bad hit sure, but overall training your body so groin muscles do not tear in week 1 of the season is important. Another thing that great slot receiver do is they minimize the number of brutal hits they take; they work on technique to avoid hits, or position their bodies for impact. Will they take the occasional big blow absolutely but in most case you saw Welker slide to the right and avoid a hit that you thought was going to be catastrophic. I can accept an injury as an excuse from Mayo or Wilfork last season but I am not going to sit here and accept that Amendola who has played just 24 of the last 48 regular season games holds no responsibility for that. He should be on the field and producing that is what he is paid to do, he never is on the field consistently, he has not been ever. What is going to change in 2014? This entire Amendola is great theory is what built on the hope that we get lucky in 2014 and he does not get injured? Hope is not a strategy.

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Not that impressive? It was a better season than many great QB's have ever had.

Let me offer some advice. When you make absolute declarations, at least use the correct words. Edelman's season is EVIDENCE that he is better, not proof. Evidence can be faulty, as the Scott Mitchell example PROVES.

Should I provide another example of a great one or two year player? Or will you just dismiss it as "not that impressive" because it doesn't suit your battle?

Edelman's season last year was NOT proof that he is better. You were wrong on that point. It's ok to admit it once in a while. Hell, how about once ever?

Given Edelman's history of injury and his historical lack of numbers, couldn't it be argued that his season was overhyped? Until proven otherwise, it's a one-year fluke. Ickey Woods' rookie season without the Super Bowl appearance. Nothing more.

The scary thing is I agree with you that Edelman will end up being the better WR. If healthy, Amendola has more talent. Since he has not been able to stay healthy, that talent has been meaningless. That does not = "he sucks" though.

Brady6 said:

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Do you even know what they mean?

Dingleberry said:

Edelman's season last year was NOT proof that he is better. You were wrong on that point. It's ok to admit it once in a while. Hell, how about once ever?

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In his 8000+ posts he has never ever admitted he was wrong and never will. Its not possible. As long as opinions exist you can never be wrong.

Dingleberry said:

Not that impressive? It was a better season than many great QB's have ever had.

Let me offer some advice. When you make absolute declarations, at least use the correct words. Edelman's season is EVIDENCE that he is better, not proof. Evidence can be faulty, as the Scott Mitchell example PROVES.

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The primary difference is had already started in the NFL and played below average, then he had one good season and returned to playing poorly. Edelman never played more than 24% of the snaps in a season, was targeted just 108 times in his 4 seasons prior to last season. His first season of playing with the starters he succeeded, you cannot penalize a player for not having an opportunity. What was Brady in 2000, a 3rd string QB, he got an opportunity to play in 2001 when Bledsoe went down and he seized it, just like Edelman last season.

Edelman's season last year was NOT proof that he is better. You were wrong on that point. It's ok to admit it once in a while. Hell, how about once ever?

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OK I used the wrong wording. The evidence as you say supports Edelman being a better player at this time, unless you have some evidence to discredit it that is, but so far you have not presented any you just took issue with what I have presented.

Given Edelman's history of injury and his historical lack of numbers, couldn't it be argued that his season was overhyped? Until proven otherwise, it's a one-year fluke. Ickey Woods' rookie season without the Super Bowl appearance. Nothing more.

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You should look at Edelman’s rookie season, he played 2 games in place of Welker (when he tore his ACL) he had 16 catches, 147 yards, and 2 touchdowns in those 2 games. Edelman’s season was not a fluke it was like everything else in his career he got an opportunity and he succeeded, like becoming one of the best punt returners in NFL history.

The scary thing is I agree with you that Edelman will end up being the better WR. If healthy, Amendola has more talent. Since he has not been able to stay healthy, that talent has been meaningless. That does not = "he sucks" though.

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See this is what makes no sense to me whatsoever. How is Amendola more talented? Physically Edelman is bigger, stronger, faster, more agile, and explosive. So where is this “more talent” because is route running a talent? No, it is a skill that can be learned, are Amendola’s hands better? Edelman having a higher catch ratio in his career would suggest otherwise. I mean you are talking about Amendola a player who entered the league as an UDFA as if he is this exceptionally gifted talent that has been limited by injuries. That is not the reality here, he is a good slot receiver when he is healthy, nothing more, from a pure god given talent perspective Amendola is not close to an elite talent, he is an average NFL talent at best who plays hard and that earned him opportunity. Josh Boyce is a more talented player than Edelman is. I guess I could understand if you said Amendola was a better player and then highlighted the attributes, skills or techniques he has that makes him that, but to say he is more talented than a player that can out perform him in ever single athletic metric does not add up to me.

Yesssss! Now, this is more like it. I was getting worried when the DA thread started a bit slow. There was that poll thingy, a few basic how ya do's..., someone threw down a few stats, another a bit of comparison logic, some hypotheticals were tossed around... then, out of nowhere, a smear, a jab, a left cross, a right-hook, 2 stinging back-to-back quoted insults, a pissing match, a strawman(!), and Woo-Hoo - it's on like Donkey-Kong bizchas. Great stuff!

Okay, since I'm one of the guys who normally spars with B6 over this, I'll have some fun here (thanks, Deus, as I always feel dirty when other threads get derailed in part because of my arguments with B6 over this).

Okay, so here we go:

"He was signed to replace Wes Welker; in 2013, he had 45% of the catches, and 46% of the yardage that Welker produced in 2012. This means Amendola was less than half the player he was signed to replace, even worse if you take Welker’s career earnings with the Patriots and divide them by the 6 seasons he played here he was paid an average of $4.6M per season, Amendola is being paid an average of $5.7M."

Let's start with this premise. Danny Amendola WAS NOT signed to replace Welker. This is like saying that Carl Yazstremski pushed Ted Williams off the Sox. Welker was GONE. They knew it. It's clear in the post-mortem that he and BB did not much like each other and really had come to the point where they didn't think very highly of each other at all. If there was no player named Danny Amendola, Wes Welker would still be a Bronco, in my opinion (judging from everything I have heard since the departure). Even if that's not true, and part of the Welker departure was because McDaniels thought Amendola the better value, hanging that on Amendola is juvenile.

I don't want to re-litigate all of that because what's done is done. Wellker didn't want to be here, BB didn't really want him here any more, and so he moved on. It's business. Breaks my heart that Welker left, especially to go catch passes from Manning, but it is what it is.

So the Patriots, thinking they had two tight end threats and would focus there once more, moved to replace a hole at (slot) receiver. Who was the best choice? Edelman, as it turns out, but who predicted that? The guy couldn't get an offer when he tested the free agent market and signed back with the Pats for peanuts!

So go look at every other WR, slot or otherwise, on the market last year and tell me who the Pats should have signed. Look at the contracts - including the one you claim to be way too high for Amendola - and show me who was available and had better production at the position than DA. Good luck - I already showed you that in another thread. None of the FA receivers performed better last year, dollar for dollar.

In short, the Pats were smart to sign him.

I also showed you the ratings from FO and other sites - ratings that had Amendola and Edelman side by sde in the football equivalent of WAR. Amendola is the best blocking receiver on the Pats. he had a higher YPC than Edelman. He had half the stats of Edelman on HALF THE SNAPS. I've said it before and I'll say it again here: the two are like mirror images of each other. They run similar routes, have similar hands, get crushed with eerie similarity...they're both injury-unlucky. Edelman broke out of that last year; here's hoping Amendola breaks out of it this year.

I have NOTHING against Edelman - he's one of my favorite players. My grandson is named after him. He's a gutsy player who leaves everything on the field, a lot like Welker, and yes, a lot like Amendola.

I became a big Danny Amendola fan in week 1 of last season. Not because of stats, but because he gutted it out (almost literally). Because of his willingness to play while clearly in severe pain, the Patriots won that game. They wouldn't have won it without him, and there he was, playing on a torn groin.

I respect that - let's compare it to a certain cornerback with "bruised quads" in the AFCCG championship game. Give me the guy who wants to die with a football in his hands.

Amendola is a Patriot - he keeps his mouth shut and plays his guts out. He was the number two receiver on the team last year, despite missing four games and playing out of position for most of the others, because a slot receiver really can't make those required sharp cuts on a torn groin - and again, with half the production on half the snaps of the guy who saved the receiving corps (Edelman).

You're claiming that Edelman is ahead of him in the minicamps so far. Where are you getting that? Everything I'm reading has Edelman, Amendola, and Thompkins taking the first team reps, with Amendola, not Edelman, in the slot. If another receiver steps up, what makes you think BB intends to move Edelman back to the slot and bump Amendola? You have no evidence of any such thing. Reiss says Amendola looks like he did pre-groin injury, with sharp cuts, good reads and clear chemistry with Brady.

All that said, I will concede that DA's on thin ice because of his contract. If he can't prove his worth this year, whether through injury or otherwise, I suspect he'll either agree to restructure or be dropped.

It's just business.

What baffles (galls?) me most about your attitude, by the way, is that Edelman was in the exact same position LAST YEAR. He couldn't get an offer on the open market. He had been an injury-plagued underperformer (with nowhere near the stats Amendola had put up - best previous season of 359 yard on 37 receptions). Now after one year, you praise him as the second coming of Welker, but are apparently too myopic to recognize that if Edelman had been the one with the torn groin last year, and Amendola healthy (and given their histories, that is not a stretch to suggest), it's pretty clear that their numbers would have been reversed.

Two more quick points: Arrington, too, played on a torn groin for part of last year, and was NOTICEABLY worse than before the injury. When I heard of his injury and when it happened, I went, "ohhhhhh."

And second, Welker is about done. This might be his last year. He got absolutely brutalized twice last year and was talking with a lisp for weeks. He'd been asked about concussions and retiring by Jackie MacMullan (think it was her) while still a Pat, and after last year, it's clear why she went there. He was one of the best the Pats ever had - I hope he has the smarts to get out before he becomes dysfunctional, especially since Manning is hanging him out to dry on a regular basis.

Deus Irae said:

Let's see if we can limit this stuff a bit.

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I don't understand the purpose of this thread. Maybe I'm just tired.

Tunescribe said:

I don't understand the purpose of this thread. Maybe I'm just tired.

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I am sure Deus started this thread in hopes that all the major Danny debates is limited to this thread. Because lately the Danny debates/discussion have spilled over into numerous other threads throwing them off topic. I am certain Deus meant well.

I like the guy and hope he plays a full season but if the past is any indication it's not going to happen.

Brady6 said:

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> using chuck norris meme to complain about meme quality

203Pat said:

I like the guy and hope he plays a full season but if the past is any indication it's not going to happen.

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Edit: I thought I was in the gronk thread and replying to this post as such, my bad.

strngplyr said:

His past says that he's played 2 full seasons as well as being injured for 2, it doesn't mean anything right now.

Once his arm healed it was never an issue. ACL's are almost never an issue anymore, there is no reason Gronkowski shouldn't play a full season unless he's just not ready to start. Signs look good for him though.

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I'd be ecstatic to get a full season out of the both of them this year.

203Pat said:

I'd be ecstatic to get a full season out of the both of them this year.

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I thought I was in the Gronk thread lol, ignore my post that was completely irrelevant here!

I like Amendola as a WR. When healthy, he is a very solid option to have in the slot. He get in and out of his cuts quickly on intermediate routes but can also take the nickel CB deep on a double cut. The problem is the "if healthy" part. Amendola is a lock to make the roster this year but if he's hampered by injury again in 2014, I could see him getting cut next year. Re: the talk about Wes Welker, if it were up to me, I never would have let him walk. But that's just me.