I agree with you that Amendola would not hear crickets on the UFA market, he would not receive anything close to the contract he did from us though, he would be fortunate to land what LaFell received from us this offseason – 3 years/$11M.
Amendola is not a consistent WR; he has more games that you would describe, as poor mediocre in his career then he does that you would consider good. Look at his 55 games, in 35 of them he finished with under 50 yards receiving in his career.
101+ yards – 5 games
75-100 yards – 2 game
50-74 yards – 13 games
25-49 yards – 16 games
0-24 yards – 19 games
The Patriots made a reactive decision to sign Amendola knowing Welker was going to Denver, when you make reactive decisions you end up overpaying in most situations. The reality is Amendola with the exception of 2 games had never done anything at the time he signed to show anything close to being worth more than $5.5M APY.
Have you ever heard the saying – To whom much is given, much is expected? That is why people are beating on Amendola because outside of Brady and Gronkowski who are HOF caliber players Amendola is the highest paid player on the offensive side of the ball. When the team fails the person who is given the most is going to be held accountable the most, which is just logic. Was Amendola to blame, probably not, but did he do anything to help this team win, no not at all, actually with the exception of the Bills game last year Amendola has not done anything that you would point to and say that guy is the reason we won today. You keep talking about 54 catches, but he has really only shown up for 3 games (Bills, Steelers, and Dolphins) outside of that he has done little to nothing. I do not consider the thread an embarrassment, you know I have a ton of respect for you Sup but the embarrassment is really you and other posters in this thread spitting the same exact excuse for Amendola you were giving last season when I opened the thread about him after the Saints game. Things are not getting better for Amendola, in his last 5 games in a Patriots uniform he has 9 catches for 147 yards, that includes a 34 yard catch and a 53 yard catch both came on play action plays (Ravens and Colts) where Amendola ran uncovered up field because the defense bit on the fake badly.
This may be me flexing my jihad muscles here, but this unwillingness to accept that Amendola was a poor signing by certain posters on the board is just becoming tired, and not because anyone even cares if they do not want to accept it and admit it but because they have the audacity to come into a thread and say things that imply Amendola does not merit this type of response by the fans of the team. After signing the biggest contract since Thomas and one of the biggest UFA contracts of Belichick’s tenure (non Patriot resigning) the player cannot show up and fall down the depth chart and expect that the player is going to get a positive spin on the teams fan forum.
Mike Reiss is expecting that Wright may take a lot of Amendola’s role and Amendola will see a reduction in his playing time, I would tend to agree with Reiss. Amendola has received more than enough opportunity and he has done little with it, the team needs to move in a different direction because the odds of him being on this team in 2015 is under 5% unless he takes a significant pay cut.
http://fansided.com/2014/09/09/new-england-patriots-news-tim-wright-may-replace-danny-amendola/