Patriots Agree To 1 Year Deal With Kellen Winslow Jr.

[pwes]

I don't think he's going to have an immediate impact. At least not enough time for Baltimore. I'd still rather have Branch back but hopefully he can produce something to help out.

 

[Rob0729]

Well, my dream of "The Soldier" lining up next to Solder has come true. Other than the fun play on words, I think this move is a Meh stop gap until Hernandez returns.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Having two all-world TE's, plus two backups who happen to get hurt, forcing you to sign a player that you worked out a few weeks ago (aka, planned for), is suddenly poor planning?

Changing your offense to combat it's inability to overcome the situation where taking away one player via double team renders it dysfunctional by switching to another scheme that is rendered even more dysfunctional if one player is taken away is certainly something that might fall into the realm of poor planning.

This team had the personnel and capacity to alternatively be almost anything other than a pure two TE drive offense at it's disposal coming out of camp and instead chose to focus almost exclusively on efforts not to be. Seven TE's and counting, most of whom can't get on or stay on the field apparently. Welker benched at $9.5M lest he derail that agenda driven vision. Mindmumbing. Who needs a functional WR corps or OL when you have 7 TE's on the roster...

 

[DefenseRules]

Changing your offense to combat it's inability to overcome the situation where taking away one player via double team renders it dysfunctional by switching to another scheme that is rendered even more dysfunctional if one player is taken away is certainly something that might fall into the realm of poor planning.

This team had the personnel and capacity to alternatively be almost anything other than a pure two TE drive offense at it's disposal coming out of camp and instead chose to focus almost exclusively on efforts not to be. Seven TE's and counting, most of whom can't get on or stay on the field apparently. Welker benched at $9.5M lest he derail that agenda driven vision. Mindmumbing. Who needs a functional WR corps or OL when you have 7 TE's on the roster...

Good points Mo. I have to admit that I'm a little confused by the moves that they have made on offense. Has there ever been 7 tightends on this team? I guess all we can do is wait and see.

 

[Sicilian]

Changing your offense to combat it's inability to overcome the situation where taking away one player via double team renders it dysfunctional by switching to another scheme that is rendered even more dysfunctional if one player is taken away is certainly something that might fall into the realm of poor planning.

This team had the personnel and capacity to alternatively be almost anything other than a pure two TE drive offense at it's disposal coming out of camp and instead chose to focus almost exclusively on efforts not to be. Seven TE's and counting, most of whom can't get on or stay on the field apparently. Welker benched at $9.5M lest he derail that agenda driven vision. Mindmumbing. Who needs a functional WR corps or OL when you have 7 TE's on the roster...

There's too much speculation in this post for me to bother. Good luck to you.

 

[JJDChE]

MoLewisrocks for GM!!!




/sarcasm

 

[ralmat55]

They worked him out in earlier this month. You think they'd know if his knees were ok or not.

Just like they knew Jonathan Fanene's knees were sound.

 

[UK_Pat37]

Good points Mo. I have to admit that I'm a little confused by the moves that they have made on offense. Has there ever been 7 tightends on this team? I guess all we can do is wait and see.

Is it that hard to truly understand? They wanted to carry four TEs on the 53 man roster the whole time. They acknowledged they needed viable backups for Hernandez and Gronkowski. Shiancoe should have been the guy next in line after Hernandez but he's hurt and not ready to be activated off of designated IR.

The Patriots abandoned three WR sets a long time ago and it's pointless carrying more WRs than you need. The likelihood is Branch remains in town in case of injury to our WR corps.

What Mo is saying is he thinks we should completely abandon our offensive philosophy in this situation, then go right back to it in 4-6 weeks. That's stupid.

Winslow may not be a 16 game starter any more, but he's a decent enough stop gap in order for us to continue running our system and, if defences don't respect his threat, he will have success.

Great move.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Schefter disagrees. He reported he passed his physical.

Schefter works for ESPN, the media entity that is basically refusing to pay attention to all of the investigations and charges emerging against Rosenhaus. Because he is one of their insiders primary sources. Winslow is one of those players who will never pass a physical unless a team opts to ignore the medical evidence because they are otherwise determined to roll the dice on him. Local reports were that he failed his physical here. Rosenhaus however knew he was free to counter those reports because this organization will never confirm or deny anything. Same deal when he leaks information about interest in a client he's desperately trying to find a spot for. NE is one team you can count on not to dispute what it being reported.

 

[Kontradiction]

They worked him out in earlier this month. You think they'd know if his knees were ok or not.

The Seahawks had him on their team prior to cutdowns and let him go even though they don't have a plethora of talent at TE.

 

[patsfaninpa]

While we're at it. Can we sign Andre Carter? I think he'd be lethal opposite Chandler Jones and use him as a situational pass rusher. Oh, and give Brian Waters a 1yr all you can eat pass at Friendly's for him and his family.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

On offense the next man up mantra has been replaced by the next TE in. That's the problem I have with this agenda driven roster construction. What happens when the supply of out of work for a reason TE's completely dries up? Would be nice to think this team was built to withstand such a challenge, but apparently that is not going to be an option.

I like Josh McDaniels. But I never believed his genius was on the level that some here now seem to believe it is. He failed miserably in Denver and St. Louis. Who hired him based on what he accomplished as the OC on a team led by TFB. Now he's back and Bill apparently thinks it's a good idea to give him free reign to tell TFB to whom he can throw the ball, and make it stick by removing alternative options.

 

[Steve102]

Changing your offense to combat it's inability to overcome the situation where taking away one player via double team renders it dysfunctional by switching to another scheme that is rendered even more dysfunctional if one player is taken away is certainly something that might fall into the realm of poor planning.

This team had the personnel and capacity to alternatively be almost anything other than a pure two TE drive offense at it's disposal coming out of camp and instead chose to focus almost exclusively on efforts not to be. Seven TE's and counting, most of whom can't get on or stay on the field apparently. Welker benched at $9.5M lest he derail that agenda driven vision. Mindmumbing. Who needs a functional WR corps or OL when you have 7 TE's on the roster...

Yeah, I don't it either. The two scenarios that I can come up with is the theory that BB uses the early regular season much like an NHL team, building a team designed to play in the postseason. The other is a much more far fetched one that BB is using the size advantages to return Brady to a more or a dink and dunk, game manager as he ages. Even that has me shaking my head that it makes no sense.

 

[ralmat55]

The problem is that if you could sew together Winslow, Fells, Hootenanny, Shiancoe and Ballard the composite wouldn't be half the player Hernandez is.

 

[Kontradiction]

Plus, didn't they have him in about 2-3 weeks ago already?

This isn't a knee-jerk desperation move at all. They did their homework on the guy BEFORE Hernandez was injured.

For those saying Winslow's knees are "shot", he caught only 4 less passes than Hernandez last year (75) from Josh Freakin' Freeman.

I don't like the dude, but I think it's a probably well-thought out maneuver.

Without Googling, can you name the other receivers that Freeman had to throw to? To top if off, Freeman was constantly pressured (hence some of the major changes along the Tampa O-Line) and had to throw to his safety valve, which was Winslow. I had a roomate that was a Bucs fan last year so, sadly, I watched nearly as much of them as I did the Pats.

 

[IllegalContact]

I recall him failing his physical here and somewhere else.

They should just send that money to waters and get him back here.

 

[jsull87]

Even with the Hernandez injury this doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Really poor planning to have to resort to a free agent like Winslow in the event that Hernandez got injured, especially since Hernandez has been fairly injury prone in the years prior, losing Hernandez is a huge part of the offense, but the fact that it appears this team is unable to function without another tight end is disturbing.
.

Really? Poor planning? i am sorry i can generally sit idle and take peoples criticism of various things the pats do as good solid discussion. But this is just asinine. Literally i would love for you to explain to me how the pats could have planned for Gronk or Hernandez to go down any better than they did.

The had an offseason where they signed both Fells and Shianco. They also brought through various other option at the position like Dalas Clark and Winslow... then kept 4 TE's on the roster. They were unluckily injured then they picked up another tight end who had experience in J McD's system unfortunately he didn't work out. News flash the pats don't control injuries.

Your comment is ridiculous i award you no points

 

[BradyManny]

While we're at it. Can we sign Andre Carter? I think he'd be lethal opposite Chandler Jones and use him as a situational pass rusher.

This.

Also frees up Ninko to play OLB if the need arises, should one of our beastly stud LBs get banged up.

 

[DefenseRules]

Is it that hard to truly understand? They wanted to carry four TEs on the 53 man roster the whole time. They acknowledged they needed viable backups for Hernandez and Gronkowski. Shiancoe should have been the guy next in line after Hernandez but he's hurt and not ready to be activated off of designated IR.

The Patriots abandoned three WR sets a long time ago and it's pointless carrying more WRs than you need. The likelihood is Branch remains in town in case of injury to our WR corps.

What Mo is saying is he thinks we should completely abandon our offensive philosophy in this situation, then go right back to it in 4-6 weeks. That's stupid.

Winslow may not be a 16 game starter any more, but he's a decent enough stop gap in order for us to continue running our system and, if defences don't respect his threat, he will have success.

Great move.

Honestly, I am not against the move. I just can't remember ever seeing so many tightends on the roster. Could be wrong though. My memory is not what it used to be. It's early in the season. I'm going to wait and see how this all comes together.

 

[IllegalContact]

For next Sunday, he will be the sacrificial offering to Bernie pollards attempt to injure someone