As if there needed to be another reason to stay away from him for a long-term, big money deal. To recap:
1. He isn't an elite cornerback. He's above average with some flaws that were exposed in Tampa Bay, but it looks like he's a good fit for the NE scheme and coaching. One of the reasons he didn't get burned often is because he wasn't on the field much here. While he is talented, this isn't a situation where you can't replace his talent. This isn't Darrelle Revis or even a pro bowl caliber player.
2. Off-field issues. Big whoop, in a contract year, he didn't make any headlines for punching someone or shooting someone for a whole two months. Does this really mean these chronic problems aren't likely to resurface?
3. Injury-prone. He has now finished three seasons watching the game from the sidelines. It seemed almost Glass-I/Wheatley/Chung-like when he was on the field. Every time he dove or made a play, you could count on a hip injury, hamstring injury, ankle injury, etc. At best, you could hope that he limped off the field and was only out for the rest of the game.
Now add to this his lack of work ethic and explain to me why it is worth giving this guy anything north of 2 years, 10M, and even that's a stretch. I understand our secondary is garbage and there seems to be no answers out there, but making a desperate move is exactly how teams become bad. They shell out a bunch of money on a huge reach because of the immediate need, when in fact next season the problems with the personnel may be very different, but now you have an overpaid player bogging down your salary cap with less room to go after real Patriots players.