Patriots Player Departure Jonnu traded to ATL

[Real fan 02]

Yeah, it was time to move on. I am happy the Falcons are taking that cap space away...for 2024 especially. 17M+ will help get us an elite WR in 2024....

Bet a change of scenery does wonders for Jonnu....and he'll probably have 40 rec, 650 yards, and 5 TD's this year easy...IMO.

Agreed unless that elite guys in the draft.. I was hoping to have an elite WR this season..

 

[Wozzy]

I didn't know anything about his but he kept popping up on the PFN draft simulator as being 6'8 260. So I thought about him as a mid round pick and when I looked up his combine numbers I was SHOCKED at how good they were, especially the 3cone. You can't be "stiff" and run a 6.8. That's a CB time.

That being said, clearly there was something going on at PennSt, if he couldn't get on the field with that kind of athletic ability. STILL a shot in the dark

This is one scouting report:

​

TE, Old Dominion Monarchs​

Old Dominion’s Zack Kuntz is one of my favorite small-school prospects and I believe he will be a big asset in the NFL. Kuntz is a former 5-star recruit who originally enrolled at Penn State before he transferred to Old Dominion. Kuntz had a sensational 2021 season which really put him on the map in the eyes of NFL evaluators but an injury cut his 2022 season short.

Kuntz is a long and well-built tight end who has outstanding size. At 6-foot-8, he towers over opposing defenders and is a mismatch nightmare. Old Dominion had Kuntz aligned all over the field and he saw snaps at Y, F, in the slot, and out wide. Kuntz is an advanced pass-catcher who runs good routes and understands how to uncover. He has good speed to stress defenders through the stem and has good lateral quickness to separate at the top of his route. He is an instinctual player who understands how to work leverage, finds soft spots in zones, and knows how to make himself available for his quarterback on scramble drills. For a longer athlete, he shows good flexibility and the ability to sink to get in and out of breaks. He has good hands, body control, and ball-tracking ability and can easily high-point the football in contested situations.

He isn’t a threat with the ball in his hands and won’t make many defenders miss but he runs with passion and will fight for yards. Kuntz must improve his ability to block in the run game, as he plays too high and allows defenders into his chest far too often. He has reps where he flashes impressive power and sustains at the point of attack but is far too inconsistent at this point in his development.

Overall, Kuntz has high-end potential as a receiving tight end with speed, ball skills, and a catch radius that will allow him to excel in a passing offense, but he likely won’t be an every-down starter until his run blocking catches up to his receiving ability.

Top Reasons to Buy In:

• Length
• Ball skills
• Route-running
• Catch radius

Top Reasons For Concern:

• Blocking
• Run after catch
• Pad level

The blocking thing bothers me the most.

He’s my TE binkie in this draft… can probably be had in the middle rounds. Stupid long, strong and athletic.

 

[Bill Lee]

Worst signing of BB's tenure.

Best outcome/resolution to a situation which just wasn't working out for either party as they had both hoped for.

Some interesting lookbacks at the 2021 FA Class:

Grading all 11 of Patriots' free-agent signings at the bye week

The Patriots went on a historic spending spree in 2021 free agency — and it seems to be paying off. Here are individual grades for Matt Judon, Hunter Henry and the rest of New England’s free-agent additions.

www.nbcsports.com

New England Patriots' NFL free-agent signings 2021: Kyle Van Noy, Hunter Henry latest adds to makeover

New England's flurry of roster additions continues with a familiar face on the defense and new pass-catchers.

www.espn.com

Definitely a swing and a miss on Smith and a few others, but good value from Judon and others.

 

[Hyped]

Agreed unless that elite guys in the draft.. I was hoping to have an elite WR this season..

Basically, our options are:

1.) D.Hop for a high pick.
2.) Cookie for a 3rd-ish.
3.) Meyers for 15M a year...
4.) Other guys like Lazard, JuJu Smith-Schuster, etc....
5.) The draft.

Between us, I want us to go the draft route....and maybe Cookie....

 

[Bill Lee]

Exactly.. like the deal supposedly created a bunch more in cap room, ok if this is the deal made for something impactful to happen then great.. not too many Edelmans in the 7th round these days..

It still amazes me how many late round picks and UDFAs end up being impact players.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Some interesting lookbacks at the 2021 FA Class:

Grading all 11 of Patriots' free-agent signings at the bye week

The Patriots went on a historic spending spree in 2021 free agency — and it seems to be paying off. Here are individual grades for Matt Judon, Hunter Henry and the rest of New England’s free-agent additions.

www.nbcsports.com

New England Patriots' NFL free-agent signings 2021: Kyle Van Noy, Hunter Henry latest adds to makeover

New England's flurry of roster additions continues with a familiar face on the defense and new pass-catchers.

www.espn.com

Definitely a swing and a miss on Smith and a few others, but good value from Judon and others.

Yep.

Unrealistic to think every FA signing will be a home run.

In general i'm ok with what they did in 2021 FA. Smith was a major swing and miss....it happens. The good news is they were able to cut their losses.

 

[FCB02062]

Just Bill the GM playing chess while everyone else plays checkers....turning a 4 year/50m bust into a 7th round pick...there's no one better guys...I don't know about guys on here, but when Smith was getting blanketed by slow linebackers I kept thinking to myself, "if Bill the GM can turn this into a 7th rounder, it'll end up being a great move"

 

[Pape]

dont know if anyone else posted this... this is a fast moving thread... 12.8 million in dead cap, but cleared 4.4m in cap space...

 

[RobertWeathers]

Just Bill the GM playing chess while everyone else plays checkers....turning a 4 year/50m bust into a 7th round pick...there's no one better guys...I don't know about guys on here, but when Smith was getting blanketed by slow linebackers I kept thinking to myself, "if Bill the GM can turn this into a 7th rounder, it'll end up being a great move"

We know. You hate Bill.

 

[PaulThePat]

Just glad to have this bum out of the building. Good riddance.

 

[rochrist]

Ive been watching him. He's fast but does not have the agility and athleticism. He's useful as a giant in the end zone, and watch out but he can run when he gets the ball. I just don't see him having the agility to get open easily. But he can run block at that size.

If you watch Kincaid, you quickly realize that you have a TE who can play like Kelce, and he might be the best to come out in many years other than Pitts.

Mayer is one of my binkies.

 

[DW Toys]

I didn't know anything about his but he kept popping up on the PFN draft simulator as being 6'8 260. So I thought about him as a mid round pick and when I looked up his combine numbers I was SHOCKED at how good they were, especially the 3cone. You can't be "stiff" and run a 6.8. That's a CB time.

That being said, clearly there was something going on at PennSt, if he couldn't get on the field with that kind of athletic ability. STILL a shot in the dark

This is one scouting report:

​

TE, Old Dominion Monarchs​

Old Dominion’s Zack Kuntz is one of my favorite small-school prospects and I believe he will be a big asset in the NFL. Kuntz is a former 5-star recruit who originally enrolled at Penn State before he transferred to Old Dominion. Kuntz had a sensational 2021 season which really put him on the map in the eyes of NFL evaluators but an injury cut his 2022 season short.

Kuntz is a long and well-built tight end who has outstanding size. At 6-foot-8, he towers over opposing defenders and is a mismatch nightmare. Old Dominion had Kuntz aligned all over the field and he saw snaps at Y, F, in the slot, and out wide. Kuntz is an advanced pass-catcher who runs good routes and understands how to uncover. He has good speed to stress defenders through the stem and has good lateral quickness to separate at the top of his route. He is an instinctual player who understands how to work leverage, finds soft spots in zones, and knows how to make himself available for his quarterback on scramble drills. For a longer athlete, he shows good flexibility and the ability to sink to get in and out of breaks. He has good hands, body control, and ball-tracking ability and can easily high-point the football in contested situations.

He isn’t a threat with the ball in his hands and won’t make many defenders miss but he runs with passion and will fight for yards. Kuntz must improve his ability to block in the run game, as he plays too high and allows defenders into his chest far too often. He has reps where he flashes impressive power and sustains at the point of attack but is far too inconsistent at this point in his development.

Overall, Kuntz has high-end potential as a receiving tight end with speed, ball skills, and a catch radius that will allow him to excel in a passing offense, but he likely won’t be an every-down starter until his run blocking catches up to his receiving ability.

Top Reasons to Buy In:

• Length
• Ball skills
• Route-running
• Catch radius

Top Reasons For Concern:

• Blocking
• Run after catch
• Pad level

The blocking thing bothers me the most.

Good find Cousin.
DW Toys

 

[DarrylS]

Where is Zeke Mowatt these days?? Then all they have to do is find Lisa Olsen for a real diversion.

 

[Real fan 02]

It still amazes me how many late round picks and UDFAs end up being impact players.

Yes, it's crazy.. I definitely feel the program your in weighs heavily on where you end up drafted or wether you end up getting drafted at all.. I'm not a draft specialist.. just my opinion..

 

[Bill Lee]

A release is usually worse cap-wise than a trade.

That said don't be surprised if this trade involves NE's 2024 5.

That's what I thought too, but googling suggests otherwise:

For the team trading the player, a trade is pretty much treated the same as the release of a player – the team is relieved of paying all future base salaries, but still must account for the bonus money that has already been paid to the player. Just like with the release of a player, the remaining unaccounted-for bonus pro-rations will accelerate and count against the team’s Salary Cap.

For the team acquiring the player, a trade means that the new team acquires the player’s remaining contract, but does not have any liability for any bonus money previously paid to the player.

So it doesn't make much difference to us on trade vs release, but ATL gets the "benefit" of us having paid the player a bonus so that player doesn't have leverage to ask for more money. For us we will see some benefit from the seventh. Even if the player chosen doesn't stick with the team, we at least get to bring a player into TC and see if they fit into our system, see if they're worth putting on the practice squad, etc. Think of it as an extended tryout.

Ref: NFL Salary Cap FAQs - Russell Street Report

And, something we may want to forget, we did just give Smith a bonus:

Jonnu Smith contract restructure creates $5.3M in cap space done 9/2022

Interesting choice of player to restructure. Did not expect that one. They are now at around $9M in cap space, though I believe that's still using the top 51 formulation... This probably also means Jonnu is guaranteed to be on the roster for a while. A release this year or next year would...

www.patsfans.com

 

[Scotty]

I didn't know anything about his but he kept popping up on the PFN draft simulator as being 6'8 260. So I thought about him as a mid round pick and when I looked up his combine numbers I was SHOCKED at how good they were, especially the 3cone. You can't be "stiff" and run a 6.8. That's a CB time.

That being said, clearly there was something going on at PennSt, if he couldn't get on the field with that kind of athletic ability. STILL a shot in the dark

This is one scouting report:

​

TE, Old Dominion Monarchs​

Old Dominion’s Zack Kuntz is one of my favorite small-school prospects and I believe he will be a big asset in the NFL. Kuntz is a former 5-star recruit who originally enrolled at Penn State before he transferred to Old Dominion. Kuntz had a sensational 2021 season which really put him on the map in the eyes of NFL evaluators but an injury cut his 2022 season short.

Kuntz is a long and well-built tight end who has outstanding size. At 6-foot-8, he towers over opposing defenders and is a mismatch nightmare. Old Dominion had Kuntz aligned all over the field and he saw snaps at Y, F, in the slot, and out wide. Kuntz is an advanced pass-catcher who runs good routes and understands how to uncover. He has good speed to stress defenders through the stem and has good lateral quickness to separate at the top of his route. He is an instinctual player who understands how to work leverage, finds soft spots in zones, and knows how to make himself available for his quarterback on scramble drills. For a longer athlete, he shows good flexibility and the ability to sink to get in and out of breaks. He has good hands, body control, and ball-tracking ability and can easily high-point the football in contested situations.

He isn’t a threat with the ball in his hands and won’t make many defenders miss but he runs with passion and will fight for yards. Kuntz must improve his ability to block in the run game, as he plays too high and allows defenders into his chest far too often. He has reps where he flashes impressive power and sustains at the point of attack but is far too inconsistent at this point in his development.

Overall, Kuntz has high-end potential as a receiving tight end with speed, ball skills, and a catch radius that will allow him to excel in a passing offense, but he likely won’t be an every-down starter until his run blocking catches up to his receiving ability.

Top Reasons to Buy In:

• Length
• Ball skills
• Route-running
• Catch radius

Top Reasons For Concern:

• Blocking
• Run after catch
• Pad level

The blocking thing bothers me the most.

Barth and Lazar are quite keen on him (especially after his combine stats) in the later draft rounds

 

[DarrylS]

As much as BB is criticized by many, he knows when to get rid of his mistakes.. good move a 7th is not a lot of value, but more value than watching Smith drop passes..

 

[Real fan 02]

Just glad to have this bum out of the building. Good riddance.

Jonathan Jones CB had more TDs than Smith in 2 seasons.. think about that one.. AS A STARTING offensive skill position player..

 

[upstater1]

Exactly.. like the deal supposedly created a bunch more in cap room, ok if this is the deal made for something impactful to happen then great.. not too many Edelmans in the 7th round these days..

True, but you'd be surprised who you can land in the 6th 7th:

2022 Isaiah Pacheco, nifty pass catcher out of the backfield
2021 Shi Smith- Carolina, Ben Skowrenek-LA Rams
2020 Quez Watkins, Donovan Peoples-Jones
2019 Scotty Miller Tampa
2018 Russell Gage Atlanta, EQ St Brown Packers

 

[Steve102]

We know. You hate Bill.