Patriots place franchise tag on K Stephen Gostkowski

BadMoFo said:

Gost gets tagged


According to Schefter

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He's it!

rochrist said:

The chief problem is that the free agent crop of safeties is horrible, as is the draft class. If /anyone/ wants a safety, they're gonna be looking at DMac first.

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Everyone except Belichick. If he wants a free safety, he'll probably be looking for another zone cover corner to convert....

And with the premium currently placed on man cover corners, it's probably a buyers market for solid zone cover corners. Or, if not a buyers market, at least you can get one in the draft or non-marquee free agent pool for less than $9 million a year.

rochrist said:

And when the kicker blows a couple of games for you in a league where every single game counts? Cause I've watched an awful lot of teams run afoul of /that/ particular fate.

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And I've watched far more teams replace kickers and have it be plenty worth it. How did you feel when the Pats let Vinatieri walk and picked Gost?

Jimke said:

Not surprised at all. He had the lowest franchise tag. He takes the load off special teams by
kicking the ball thru the end zone. Don't want an unreliable kicker.
I just hope the Patriots don't wait up too long for Revis to decide and lose everyone else.

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Very good point. How many injuries have we avoided by not having to cover so many kicks?

You'd think people would have learnt from the Broncos that an automatic kicker is worth his weight in gold. Hell, have a look at the Packers when Mason Crosby gets the wobbles.

Ghost is a valuable member of the Patriots. At marginal cost, I have no problem with the Patriots paying him somewhere in the vicinity of 4 million per especially when one considers the flexibility this now affords the Patriots to manage their cap, sign their own players and attract free agents.

PatsWickedPissah said:

I guess we won't be taking a kicker with one of our 4th round picks

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Unless the guy they draft looks injury prone this year.

BradyFTW! said:

And I've watched far more teams replace kickers and have it be plenty worth it. How did you feel when the Pats let Vinatieri walk and picked Gost?

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Don't forget that one of the reasons the Pats were leery of giving Vinatieri an extension was that his kickoffs were . . . unwonderful.

If they had kept him, within a year or two they would have needed to have a punter who could handle kickoffs too.

Gost stays here a couple more years and he's building himself a nice Pats HoF resume.

Everybody who wants the Pats to draft a guy and replace Gost... just sit tight, you'll get your wish. The franchise tag often starts the clock ticking on a 1 to 2 year end game. The franchise tag next year will be $4.9 million and that will be as far as the Pats want to go on that ride...

hwc said:

Everybody who wants the Pats to draft a guy and replace Gost... just sit tight, you'll get your wish. The franchise tag often starts the clock ticking on a 1 to 2 year end game. The franchise tag next year will be $4.9 million and that will be as far as the Pats want to go on that ride...

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(A) There's no reason for the Pats to let Gostkowski walk until it's into retirement.
(B) There's no reason the Pats need to keep Gostkowski on the franchise tag. They could easily give him a four-year contract averaging $4M a year that gives him about a $2.5M–$3M cap hit for 2015.

BradyFTW! said:

And I've watched far more teams replace kickers and have it be plenty worth it. How did you feel when the Pats let Vinatieri walk and picked Gost?

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Not that great. And, in fact, it may have at least played a role in the loss of the SB in 2007. That said, Vinatieri had become a distinct liablity on kickoffs, to the point hey were messing with carrying two kickers to compensate. The point is, it's a complete crapshoot to replace kickers. You may get lucky. You can easily get unlucky, and one instance of bad luck can cost a season.

Unwonderful...I learn new things here every day. Thanx CT...I'll begin using that tomorrow...maybe I'll even get a you tube to go viral!

ctpatsfan77 said:

(A) There's no reason for the Pats to let Gostkowski walk until it's into retirement.
(B) There's no reason the Pats need to keep Gostkowski on the franchise tag. They could easily give him a four-year contract averaging $4M a year that gives him about a $2.5M–$3M cap hit for 2015.

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If 4 years, $16 million would have gotten the deal done, you would think they would have just done that deal. Gost must have been holding out for more.

I expect Belichick to start bringing in kickers right away, but at least now he has a year to get really serious about it.

BradyFTW! said:

And I've watched far more teams replace kickers and have it be plenty worth it. How did you feel when the Pats let Vinatieri walk and picked Gost?

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Hated to see AV go. He was money in the big games.

So far, Gost has worked out fantastic. Last 2 seasons he is a 90+% FG kicker and in 3 seasons is 8 out of 9 over 50 yards. They say that college kickers today have never been better. Maybe NE will draft a Kicker.

BobDigital said:

Well this is going to make the nest 8 days very interesting.

Edit: Also this might speak strongly for the Pats evaluation of McCourty.

They might be saying "You are not worth top market safety money". Maybe they view him under the top guys by a bit and want to pay him accordingly.

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I wouldn't read too much in to it. If I were to read anything in to it I would argue they are more confident in resigning McCourty than they are Gostkowski.

Not only that...reliable safeties can be picked up. Kickers like Gostkowski are hard to find and he was one of the league's top points scorers out of everyone.

I think more than anyhing this demonstrates how much the Patriots value special teams. We lucked out walking away from Vinatieri and getting Gostkowski. The Pats aren't taking that for granted.

We all know how much value BB put on STs , if he is paying 2 Mi for a gunner I was sure they would be able to keep Gost, he is one of the most important players on this team. Well done.

Joker said:

Unwonderful...I learn new things here every day. Thanx CT...I'll begin using that tomorrow...maybe I'll even get a you tube to go viral!

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Oh, don't let your you tube go viral, you'll be sick over it.

The team was $6M over the cap. Tagging McCourty would have been unreasonable. This gives them time to work out something or extend Revis while negotiating with McCourty and either restructuring Mayo or Wilfork again.