Terrible analogies, Butler worked his ass off and Brady is the most dedicated player to ever play the game. The Patriots always do their due diligence and I'm sure they have their scouting reports on Pettigrew as well as every player out there and if they like him they will check him out. I still think he's a dog, and I don't think either Butler or Brady are.
Understanding the importance of the bottom of the roster doesn't mean wanting every player who gets released.
I agree, it's not about lusting after every player that is cut. But it's a simple question because you're comparing against what you have. I'm not asking if Pettigrew is a good player or a great player or a potential Pro Bowl player. I'm wondering, is Lengel a better player than Pettigrew? I don't know, haven't seen him, but it's a fair question. I've seen Pettigrew at his best and worst. I don't know what the floor or ceiling on Lengel is.
As for the analogies, I think both are fair. Neither player was highly regarded at the time. Sure, hindsight makes it seem like of course they'd be guys we would keep, but neither was a roster lock.
At the time, Butler was an UDFA out of a small school with questions about his past. He wasn't on most roster projections I saw that year. Nobody was thinking he would emerge into a significant starter and author of the Super Bowl winning play. Most would have figured him to be a dog at the time. It's easy to look back now, but at the time, nobody gave a **** really.
And I doubt you (or I, or anyone including BB) projected Brady to be the greatest QB of all time. Don't forget we drafted Adrian Klemm, J.R. Redmond, Greg Robinson-Randall, Dave Stachelski, Jeff Marriott, and Antwan Harris before finally selecting Brady in the 6th round of the 2000 draft. He was the 4th-string QB on a ****ty team with a Pro Bowl starter who was the highest-paid player in the NFL. I'm sure many were wondering what the heck the point was.
But even beyond those two, the point is that every team every year relies on "dogs" who are outcast from their teams. A more relevant comparison might be Mark Anderson, a guy who had early success with the team that drafted him, but fell out of favour. He signed a one-year deal here and had a nice year for us with 10 sacks.
Blount's another example of a "dog" from a ****ty team in Tampa. He had some early success but got benched by a terrible Bucs team, and many were wondering why we'd bother trading for him. And even up to earlier this year, people were *****ing and moaning about him.
Then there are the flipsides, the Steven Jacksons and the Reggie Waynes that amount to nothing. But at this point of the season, if you can bring a guy in on a non-guaranteed contract and see if they can help the team and all it costs is a roster spot and a bit of cash, why wouldn't you at least want to find out? You're not giving up draft capital, you're not risking a huge chunk of money, you can cut the guy in a week (or a day if you want) with no real repercussions.
It's low-risk, high-reward. Yet every time these opportunities come up, so many people bash these types of deals because the player sucked with their old team or they're old or not as good as they used to be. Van Noy is the most recent example of a guy outcast by his current team, a guy many wondered why we bothered with. But he's one of many, and he certainly won't be the last.
