Gaffney Released

[Deus Irae]

To put the wide receiver issue in perspective, the New England Patriots carried six wide receivers on the roster during the 2011-12 NFL Season:

Welker
Branch
Ochocinco
Price/Underwood
Edelman
Slater

Currently, the New England Patriots have five wide receivers on the roster for the 2012-13 NFL Season:

Welker
Branch
Lloyd
Edelman
Slater

The recent addition of Jeff Demps as a "joker" in the New England Patriots offense may have swayed the thought process of the New England Patriots coaching staff with regard to a sixth wide receiver on the 53 man roster.

They currently have more WRs on the roster than you're listing.

 

[ATippett56]

They currently have more WRs on the roster than you're listing.

In my opinion, the following wide receivers aren't even worth mentioning since they are most likely longshots to make the 53 man roster:

Ebert
Holley
Taylor

 

[Deus Irae]

In my opinion, the following wide receivers aren't even worth mentioning since they are most likely longshots to make the 53 man roster:

Ebert
Holley
Taylor

Unless you're one of the few that can feel vindicated in having had Gaffney as a long shot to make the roster, I'd suggest that learning from experience would be the way to go here, for all of us. While I certainly don't expect Holley or Taylor to make the team, and I look at Ebert more as a future PS candidate, I think we can safely say that cuts like Sanders, Meriweather and Gaffney (and keepers-so-far like 2 of your 3 stooges) should have us a viewing positions as being more 'competitive' than we might think.

 

[Rob0729]

To put the wide receiver issue in perspective, the New England Patriots carried six wide receivers on the roster during the 2011-12 NFL Season:

Welker
Branch
Ochocinco
Price/Underwood
Edelman
Slater

Currently, the New England Patriots have five wide receivers on the roster for the 2012-13 NFL Season:

Welker
Branch
Lloyd
Edelman
Slater

The recent addition of Jeff Demps as a "joker" in the New England Patriots offense may have swayed the thought process of the New England Patriots coaching staff with regard to a sixth wide receiver on the 53 man roster.

I'd take the 5 WRs this year over the six last year. Lloyd is an upgrade over branch and Branch is an upgrade over Ocho and Ocho, Price, and Underwood weren't much to write home about anyway.

 

[BradyManny]

In my opinion, the following wide receivers aren't even worth mentioning since they are most likely longshots to make the 53 man roster:

Ebert
Holley
Taylor

Probably right - and your larger point, is that we appear to be going into the season with one less WR, is pertinent to this conversation.

I think people ignored we carried Price & Underwood for the bulk of last season.

Lloyd replaces Ocho. There's still one more WR body last year. Does Ebert earn that spot? Maybe. Maybe Bill likes a balance between youth and veteran and there's a developmental spot open. I dunno.

Frankly, if I knew the team was going to cut Stallworth and Gaffney, I would've hoped they retain Underwood and see what he offers through camp.

 

[ATippett56]

Frankly, if I knew the team was going to cut Stallworth and Gaffney, I would've hoped they retain Underwood and see what he offers through camp.

Long term, the New England Patriots organization may view Jeff Demps as the "younger Percy Harvin" of the New England Patriots offense, a proverbial jack-of-all-trades.

 

[BradyManny]

Long term, the New England Patriots organization may view Jeff Demps as the "younger Percy Harvin" of the New England Patriots offense, a proverbial jack-of-all-trades.

That's really long term, and that would be nice if he could turn into that, but what I'm saying is they still carried a young deep threat guy all last season (Price, Underwood). That's still one more outside threat than we're currently projecting with Gaffney cut.

There's only one guy on this roster that attacks the areas of the field we're talking about (deep, outside).

 

[ATippett56]

Unless you're one of the few that can feel vindicated in having had Gaffney as a long shot to make the roster, I'd suggest that learning from experience would be the way to go here, for all of us. While I certainly don't expect Holley or Taylor to make the team, and I look at Ebert more as a future PS candidate.

I would prefer wide receiver Jabar Gaffney on the 53 man roster, however what's done is done. Until Jabar Gaffney signs with another organization, I will not give up hope.

As for Jeremy Ebert, I have the former Northwestern wide receiver slotted on the practice squad.

 

[ATippett56]

That's really long term, and that would be nice if he could turn into that, but what I'm saying is they still carried a young deep threat guy all last season (Price, Underwood). That's still one more outside threat than we're currently projecting with Gaffney cut.

Until former New England Patriots wide receiver Jabar Gaffney officially signs with another organization, I will not give up hope on his return.

 

[BradyFTW!]

Good post. Makes total sense. But if you know this, and I can make sense of this, don't you think that Belichick knows it? And if Gaffney was a key to creating this kind of space, why on earth did he cut him?

Honestly, and I know I'm just shooting in the dark here, but I wonder if Demps may be part of the solution here. Obviously he's a burner - fastest guy in the league right now. He's not just a burner, he's a great athlete overall. Strong, compact. I don't know if he is a good receiver and I have no idea if he would be good as an outside WR. But if he has any ability at all there, teams will HAVE to respect his speed, right? I mean, he'll be able to get by any defender within a few yards most likely. Especially if they line him up in the backfield initially, which forces a safety or LB on him, and then they send him in motion wide, isolating him on a much slower player. The D will have to roll coverage that way, right? Wouldn't the mere threat of him out wide open up all kinds of field for the other receivers?

Now, maybe BB isn't thinking like that whatsoever. None of us knows the plan.

If we're going to end discussion based on the bolded text, then there wouldn't be much to discuss on this forum. Pretty much everything would begin and end with "this is how Belichick sees it, so we're done here". Rather than end every discussion before it begins, IMO we're better of discussing based on the admittedly limited information that we have, without resorting to appeals to authority.

Maybe Belichick thinks that Gaffney's roster spot is more needed at some other position. Maybe he has an agreement with Gaffney that he'll IR Ballard immediately after the cut-down so that he isn't subject to waivers, and then re-sign Gaffney as soon as the roster spot is open. Maybe Branch gets hurt in the next preseason game and basically forces us to re-sign Gaffney. Maybe BB thinks that Gaffney isn't needed because someone else on the roster -- Demps, Slater, etc. -- can offer what he was supposed to. These are all possibilities, and they should be acknowledged, but for now at least it seems to make more sense to discuss the roster as currently constructed. And since Slater has bricks for hands and Demps is a RB who didn't touch a football for six months, I know that I'm not comfortable with the idea of them being option #2 in this area.

Beyond that, I think Belichick's track record makes it clear that questioning his personnel evaluation isn't entirely pointless. When you question what Belichick's doing, you'll be wrong most of the time, but sometimes you'll be right. When I took issue with releasing both Sanders and Meriweather (I was fine with releasing one, but not both), there was a contingent of posters here who basically argued "we'll obviously be fine with Brown, Barrett, and Ihedigbo. Belichick knows football, and he wouldn't have cut those guys if this wasn't true". Lo and behold, we weren't fine; far from it.

The reason why appeals to authority don't work as a rational argument is because there's really no way to further the discussion with them. Rather than ending the discussion with "Belichick thinks we'll be fine", we'd be better of figuring out why he thinks we'll be fine and then discussing that. If we can't figure that out, then we're better off just acknowledging that there's some known unknowns that are likely informing the decision, and leave it at that while continuing to discuss what we know.

 

[BradyFTW!]

I'd take the 5 WRs this year over the six last year. Lloyd is an upgrade over branch and Branch is an upgrade over Ocho and Ocho, Price, and Underwood weren't much to write home about anyway.

That group of six was constructed with the assumption that Ocho would offer something. Had Belichick known going in that Ocho was going to be useless, it's doubtful that he would have been content going into the season with that unit.

What you're basically saying is "the expected outcome for 2012 is better than the near-worst-case scenario that was actually realized in 2011, so we're fine".

 

[Rob0729]

That group of six was constructed with the assumption that Ocho would offer something. Had Belichick known going in that Ocho was going to be useless, it's doubtful that he would have been content going into the season with that unit.

What you're basically saying is "the expected outcome for 2012 is better than the near-worst-case scenario that was actually realized in 2011, so we're fine".

Well, i am hoping our passing offense doesn't suck like last year. If what you call our near than worst case scenario is Brady passing 5,235 yards and 39 TDs, sign me up. As much as our offense was a disaster last year, I think the receiving corp is better with Lloyd so Brady might elevate his game to Sanchez like.

Seriously. Brady broke a 30 year old record (which was also broken by Brees) for passing yards and threw for more TDs in a season other than 2007 and you are spinning it into a disaster. And they addressed the one deficiency in the passing game last year - lack of an outside/deep threat.

 

[BradyFTW!]

Well, i am hoping our passing offense doesn't suck like last year. If what you call our near than worst case scenario is Brady passing 5,235 yards and 39 TDs, sign me up. As much as our offense was a disaster last year, I think the receiving corp is better with Lloyd so Brady might elevate his game to Sanchez like.

Seriously. Brady broke a 30 year old record (which was also broken by Brees) for passing yards and threw for more TDs in a season other than 2007 and you are spinning it into a disaster. And they addressed the one deficiency in the passing game last year - lack of an outside/deep threat.

As long as you conflate "passing game" with "ability to threaten the deep/intermediate outside portion of the field", you will continue to miss the point. Since you've been hammering home the same straw man for two solid days now, I can only conclude that you have no actual rebuttal to the actual points that people are actually making.

 

[Rob0729]

As long as you conflate "passing game" with "ability to threaten the deep/intermediate outside portion of the field", you will continue to miss the point. Since you've been hammering home the same straw man for two solid days now, at this point I can only conclude that you have no actual rebuttal to the actual points that people are actually making.

You win. The Pats have no one who can attack the deep./outside portion of the field. Instead of getting a guy who attack those areas, they got a Welker clone in Lloyd.

Seriously, I did address that issue and SO DID THE PATRIOTS!!!!! They got Brandon Lloyd. Without Gaffney (WHO MAY BE BACK IN A FEW WEEKS), the Pats have blown that golden opportunity for 2-5 plays a game to have both Gaffney and LLoyd on the same field together.

If you want to talk about straw man's arguments, why don't we go back to argue about how the Patriots are blowing the WR position this year because the WR position is exactly like the safety position last year.

Again, the Pats have addressed the deep and outside threat problem with a very good deep and outside threat. Gaffney would be added depth and nothing more. And he is very likely to be back when his quad injury heals. It has been over 48 hours since his release and no one has made a move that we know of which further gives weight to the theory that there is a handshake agreement that they re-sign him after he gets healthy.

Please go on ignoring the fact that I addressed the deep threat/outside receiver issue and ignore the fact the Pats addressed the issue that you are so concerned about by signing a solid starting deep/outside receiver. If the Pats didn't have Lloyd on the roster, you would have a strong argument about a deep/outside threat. But with Lloyd, your argument rings a little hollow.

BTW, I still maintain the Pats significantly upgraded their #2 WR position and their #3 WR position and addressed the receiving corp's biggest weakness which is far greater than just being better than last year's situation.

 

[Rob0729]

1) Nobody said that the WR position in 2012 is like the safety position in 2011. You stated that there's no real precedent for cutting a player coming back to haunt the Patriots. I provided Meriweather and Sanders as counterpoints. Not sure why you keep harping on the fact that the WR depth isn't as bad as the safety depth was last year. You could remove Lloyd from this team and we'd still be better off at WR than we were at safety last year, so that kinda goes without saying. If we all agree that the safeties were awful last year, and they would have been better if at least one of Sanders/Meriweather had been kept, then we're all in agreement there and there's no need to keep discussing it.

2) As long as you act like all wide receivers are created equal, and there is no difference between outside-the-numbers threats and guys who work solely in the middle of the field, then you'll continue to not understand why there is, in fact, a depth problem to be concerned about.

We are currently one injury away from being basically incapable of threatening a huge portion of the field, just as we were last year. This is a significant shortcoming in any offense, and last year it limited what the Patriots could do offensively. Now, we're reduced to hoping that Lloyd doesn't get hurt, despite the fact that history indicates that he likely will, because he's the only player on the roster who can fill this very important role.

When you have a player who can consistently beat single coverage outside, defenses have to pick their poison, and no matter what they do, someone who should demand a double team will be single-covered. As long as Lloyd's healthy, we'll see this in action, to some extent. The end result will probably be that opposing defenses will put a safety over the top to help on Lloyd--something that they never had to do last year--which will give Welker, Gronk, and Hernandez a lot more room to operate in the middle of the field.

If Lloyd goes down--and again, history indicates that he's pretty likely to miss at least some time--we'll be right back to square one (2011). There will be no dilemma for opposing defenses - they'll just put single coverage on Branch and anyone else who happens to be lining up outside, and have their safeties concentrate primarily on all of the middle guys.

Given how passing rules are set up today, it will still be possible for the Patriots' offense to win out on superior talent and perfect execution, which they'll do a whole lot of the time because of how good Brady, Welker, Gronk and Hernandez are. But you're essentially forcing these guys to be perfect and beat opposing defenses even as they know what's coming. It's adding a degree of difficulty that you didn't need to add, since it wouldn't have been hard at all to just keep Gaffney, and as a result have depth at WR that allows you to threaten defenses outside the numbers even if Lloyd goes down.

I guess I didn't respond to this one. The whole "If Lloyd goes down" argument is week. If Mayo goes down, Bobby Carpenter replaces him who has a long history of being a poor starter. If Stephen Gregory goes down, he is replaced by an unproven rookie in Tavon Wilson. If Chandler Jones goes down, he is replaced by either Jermaine Cunningham who many consider a bust or an unproven Bequette. If Brady goes down, the season is over. If Vollmer or Solder go down, Marcus Cannon goes to RT.

Let's call off the season because it is clear that we are about three injuries from the 2011 Colts. Sorry, but keeping Gaffney as insurance for Lloyd is stupid.

And again, you don't know why they cut Gaffney and whether he will be back. Without knowing the whole story, bashing Belichick is a little shortsighted.

Again, creating rosters assuming your starters are going to go down with injuries is not a way to build a roster. Brandon Lloyd more than addresses the deep outside threat. If they bring Gaffney back, more the better. But this season isn't lost because they cut a #4 WR who is injury insurance for the starting outside/deep threat.

 

[BradyFTW!]

I guess I didn't respond to this one. The whole "If Lloyd goes down" argument is week. If Mayo goes down, Bobby Carpenter replaces him who has a long history of being a poor starter. If Stephen Gregory goes down, he is replaced by an unproven rookie in Tavon Wilson. If Chandler Jones goes down, he is replaced by either Jermaine Cunningham who many consider a bust or an unproven Bequette. If Brady goes down, the season is over. If Vollmer or Solder go down, Marcus Cannon goes to RT.

Let's call off the season because it is clear that we are about three injuries from the 2011 Colts. Sorry, but keeping Gaffney as insurance for Lloyd is stupid.

And again, you don't know why they cut Gaffney and whether he will be back. Without knowing the whole story, bashing Belichick is a little shortsighted.

Again, creating rosters assuming your starters are going to go down with injuries is not a way to build a roster. Brandon Lloyd more than addresses the deep outside threat. If they bring Gaffney back, more the better. But this season isn't lost because they cut a #4 WR who is injury insurance for the starting outside/deep threat.

If Mayo goes down, there are other guys on the roster who can provide a poor man's impersonation of he does. If Gregory goes down, there are other guys who can provide a poor man's impersonation (at the very least) of his role. Same with Jones. Scheme adjustments would be required, but there won't be much that you simply can't do anymore.

If Lloyd goes down, an entire (large) dimension of the passing game simply goes away, because there's literally nobody else on the roster that can provide even a poor man's impersonation of what he does. Which is pretty bizarre, since it's not even a rare skill, and as recently as two days ago we had someone on the roster who could cover for him as needed.

Again, if you don't see the difference between that and your terrible analogy, then I really can't help you.

 

[BradyFTW!]

You win. The Pats have no one who can attack the deep./outside portion of the field. Instead of getting a guy who attack those areas, they got a Welker clone in Lloyd.

Seriously, I did address that issue and SO DID THE PATRIOTS!!!!! They got Brandon Lloyd. Without Gaffney (WHO MAY BE BACK IN A FEW WEEKS), the Pats have blown that golden opportunity for 2-5 plays a game to have both Gaffney and LLoyd on the same field together.

If you want to talk about straw man's arguments, why don't we go back to argue about how the Patriots are blowing the WR position this year because the WR position is exactly like the safety position last year.

Again, the Pats have addressed the deep and outside threat problem with a very good deep and outside threat. Gaffney would be added depth and nothing more. And he is very likely to be back when his quad injury heals. It has been over 48 hours since his release and no one has made a move that we know of which further gives weight to the theory that there is a handshake agreement that they re-sign him after he gets healthy.

Please go on ignoring the fact that I addressed the deep threat/outside receiver issue and ignore the fact the Pats addressed the issue that you are so concerned about by signing a solid starting deep/outside receiver. If the Pats didn't have Lloyd on the roster, you would have a strong argument about a deep/outside threat. But with Lloyd, your argument rings a little hollow.

BTW, I still maintain the Pats significantly upgraded their #2 WR position and their #3 WR position and addressed the receiving corp's biggest weakness which is far greater than just being better than last year's situation.

More straw men. You didn't address a single point that I actually made, so I'm going to go ahead and take that as a tacit acknowledgement that you'd rather take a few more laps around a nonexistent argument than actually contribute to the discussion. Count me out.

Also, nobody ever said that the 2012 WRs are just like the 2011 safeties. You made that one up all by yourself, and I already addressed it multiple times. See:

Nobody said that the WR position in 2012 is like the safety position in 2011. You stated that there's no real precedent for cutting a player coming back to haunt the Patriots. I provided Meriweather and Sanders as counterpoints. Not sure why you keep harping on the fact that the WR depth isn't as bad as the safety depth was last year. You could remove Lloyd from this team and we'd still be better off at WR than we were at safety last year, so that kinda goes without saying. If we all agree that the safeties were awful last year, and they would have been better if at least one of Sanders/Meriweather had been kept, then we're all in agreement there and there's no need to keep discussing it.

Your consistent failure at reading comprehension and reliance on straw men makes it very difficult to take your posts seriously.

 

[ivanvamp]

I guess I didn't respond to this one. The whole "If Lloyd goes down" argument is week. If Mayo goes down, Bobby Carpenter replaces him who has a long history of being a poor starter. If Stephen Gregory goes down, he is replaced by an unproven rookie in Tavon Wilson. If Chandler Jones goes down, he is replaced by either Jermaine Cunningham who many consider a bust or an unproven Bequette. If Brady goes down, the season is over. If Vollmer or Solder go down, Marcus Cannon goes to RT.

Let's call off the season because it is clear that we are about three injuries from the 2011 Colts. Sorry, but keeping Gaffney as insurance for Lloyd is stupid.

And again, you don't know why they cut Gaffney and whether he will be back. Without knowing the whole story, bashing Belichick is a little shortsighted.

Again, creating rosters assuming your starters are going to go down with injuries is not a way to build a roster. Brandon Lloyd more than addresses the deep outside threat. If they bring Gaffney back, more the better. But this season isn't lost because they cut a #4 WR who is injury insurance for the starting outside/deep threat.

I think you and I have tended to be somewhat on the same side in this argument, but I'm going to part ways with you on the bolded part. It is really important to have quality depth precisely because football is a sport where you expect to have injuries. You don't know when they will happen and who will get hurt, but football is a war of attrition over the course of a full season.

It's imperative that the Patriots have quality depth - at least as much as they can muster given the constraints of a salary cap. Where I disagree with guys like Deus and perhaps BradyFTW is that I think they have *tons* of excellent receiving options, from Gronk to Hernandez (who played the vast majority of his snaps as a wideout, not as a true TE) to Welker to Lloyd to Branch to Woodhead to Vereen and even to the backup TEs. They only have one true deep threat in Lloyd, so that could be an area of weakness. But Gaffney, though I like him, wasn't a true deep threat either. In terms of the # of receptions he has had where the ball is thrown 21+ yards downfield, here are his numbers:

2011: 6 out of 68 rec
2010: 6 out of 65
2009: 7 out of 54
2008: 2 out of 38
2007: 6 out of 36
TOT (last 5 years): 27 out of 261 (10.3%)

Compare that to a "true" deep threat, like Mike Wallace:

2011: 9 out of 72
2010: 14 out of 60
2009: 12 out of 39
TOT: 35 out of 171 (20.5%)

Or to Desean Jackson:

2011: 9 out of 58
2010: 12 out of 47
2009: 10 out of 62
2008: 10 out of 62
TOT: 41 out of 229 (17.9%)

Or even less-heralded Johnny Knox:

2011: 8 out of 37
2010: 9 out of 51
2009: 7 out of 45
TOT: 24 out of 133 (18.0%)

So Gaffney is somewhat of a deep threat, but not a "true" deep threat in the mold of these burners. So I'm not sure having him on the team really helps *that* much in terms of being a second deep guy if Lloyd goes down. More helpful in terms of the deep ball than, say, Matthew Slater, so I'd prefer for Gaffney to be here, but he's not *THAT* helpful. Maybe not so much as to override other reasons for cutting him.

 

[BradyFTW!]

I think you and I have tended to be somewhat on the same side in this argument, but I'm going to part ways with you on the bolded part. It is really important to have quality depth precisely because football is a sport where you expect to have injuries. You don't know when they will happen and who will get hurt, but football is a war of attrition over the course of a full season.

It's imperative that the Patriots have quality depth - at least as much as they can muster given the constraints of a salary cap. Where I disagree with guys like Deus and perhaps BradyFTW is that I think they have *tons* of excellent receiving options, from Gronk to Hernandez (who played the vast majority of his snaps as a wideout, not as a true TE) to Welker to Lloyd to Branch to Woodhead to Vereen and even to the backup TEs. They only have one true deep threat in Lloyd, so that could be an area of weakness. But Gaffney, though I like him, wasn't a true deep threat either. In terms of the # of receptions he has had where the ball is thrown 21+ yards downfield, here are his numbers:

2011: 6 out of 68 rec
2010: 6 out of 65
2009: 7 out of 54
2008: 2 out of 38
2007: 6 out of 36
TOT (last 5 years): 27 out of 261 (10.3%)

Compare that to a "true" deep threat, like Mike Wallace:

2011: 9 out of 72
2010: 14 out of 60
2009: 12 out of 39
TOT: 35 out of 171 (20.5%)

Or to Desean Jackson:

2011: 9 out of 58
2010: 12 out of 47
2009: 10 out of 62
2008: 10 out of 62
TOT: 41 out of 229 (17.9%)

Or even less-heralded Johnny Knox:

2011: 8 out of 37
2010: 9 out of 51
2009: 7 out of 45
TOT: 24 out of 133 (18.0%)

So Gaffney is somewhat of a deep threat, but not a "true" deep threat in the mold of these burners. So I'm not sure having him on the team really helps *that* much in terms of being a second deep guy if Lloyd goes down. More helpful in terms of the deep ball than, say, Matthew Slater, so I'd prefer for Gaffney to be here, but he's not *THAT* helpful. Maybe not so much as to override other reasons for cutting him.

That's a fair assessment, and if the Patriots had decided to keep Stallworth over Gaffney for exactly that reason, then I would have understood. Neither Gaffney nor Lloyd are burners in the traditional sense--though Lloyd's closer to one than Gaffney--but Gaffney can at least beat single coverage 15-20 yards downfield outside the numbers. It's not altogether unlike Branch circa 2002-2004. Branch was never a burner either, but he was an effective flanker and he spread defenses out.

Gaffney offered something similar when he was here( see 0:08, 0:44, and especially 1:07) Jabar Gaffney Highlights - YouTube Maybe, at 32, he can't do what he used to do, and that's why he was cut. That would make sense, although it wouldn't make the hole in the roster any less concerning.

At the very least, I'll definitely agree that Gaffney isn't ideal in the role that we're discussing. He's not even close to a deep threat in the Wallace, Jackson, Knox, etc. mold. Moss is probably the only true deep threat that we've ever had that was a difference-maker under Belichick, and it seems to me like he was so burned by the Ochocinco trade that he went pretty far out of his way to stick with guys who he knew could succeed in the Pats' system. If that's the case, then the Pats probably were willing to accept that he wasn't a perfect fit in order to get a guy who they knew could succeed in something resembling that role. Until yesterday, I assumed that that was why Gaffney and Stallworth were both signed: to let the two of them compete to see who could be the guy, and the better player would make the final 53.

Gaffney's not a traditional deep threat, but you can't single cover him and forget about him, either. Without him, the closest that we have in the event that Lloyd misses time is probably Branch, and from what I see it looks like he lost the ability to beat man coverage sometime between 2005 and 2010. Who knows, though, maybe I'm wrong and he's spent all offseason getting experimental treatments on his knees over in Germany.

 

[Rob0729]

I think you and I have tended to be somewhat on the same side in this argument, but I'm going to part ways with you on the bolded part. It is really important to have quality depth precisely because football is a sport where you expect to have injuries. You don't know when they will happen and who will get hurt, but football is a war of attrition over the course of a full season.

It's imperative that the Patriots have quality depth - at least as much as they can muster given the constraints of a salary cap. Where I disagree with guys like Deus and perhaps BradyFTW is that I think they have *tons* of excellent receiving options, from Gronk to Hernandez (who played the vast majority of his snaps as a wideout, not as a true TE) to Welker to Lloyd to Branch to Woodhead to Vereen and even to the backup TEs. They only have one true deep threat in Lloyd, so that could be an area of weakness. But Gaffney, though I like him, wasn't a true deep threat either. In terms of the # of receptions he has had where the ball is thrown 21+ yards downfield, here are his numbers:

2011: 6 out of 68 rec
2010: 6 out of 65
2009: 7 out of 54
2008: 2 out of 38
2007: 6 out of 36
TOT (last 5 years): 27 out of 261 (10.3%)

Compare that to a "true" deep threat, like Mike Wallace:

2011: 9 out of 72
2010: 14 out of 60
2009: 12 out of 39
TOT: 35 out of 171 (20.5%)

Or to Desean Jackson:

2011: 9 out of 58
2010: 12 out of 47
2009: 10 out of 62
2008: 10 out of 62
TOT: 41 out of 229 (17.9%)

Or even less-heralded Johnny Knox:

2011: 8 out of 37
2010: 9 out of 51
2009: 7 out of 45
TOT: 24 out of 133 (18.0%)

So Gaffney is somewhat of a deep threat, but not a "true" deep threat in the mold of these burners. So I'm not sure having him on the team really helps *that* much in terms of being a second deep guy if Lloyd goes down. More helpful in terms of the deep ball than, say, Matthew Slater, so I'd prefer for Gaffney to be here, but he's not *THAT* helpful. Maybe not so much as to override other reasons for cutting him.

Having quality depth and building a roster on the assumption of starters are going to be injured are two different things. Yes, you want to build a back roster of guys who can step up if there is an injury, but your primary priority for determining who should be the back up is based on what they can give you on every Sunday not just when a starter or another key role player goes down to injury. Only the back up QB is on the roster for that reason. For example, if the Pats felt Gaffney's primary value was insurance for Lloyd goes down and they were deciding between him and say Jeff Demps who they feel will be a good to great returner by midseason, but probably won't ever see the field this year on offense; you cut Gaffney and keep Demps.

As for Gaffney as a deep threat, I agree with you. He was never a deep threat in McDaniels' offense. He is a possession WR who can occasionally go deep, not a true deep threat WR.

Also, the NFL is changing. I don't think deep threats are nearly as important anymore. Two of the best offenses last year rarely if ever went deep (the Pats and Saints). With the defensive rules changing, the TE, receiving RB, and slot WR is becoming far more important.