The Patriots will enter the beginning of the 2018 league season with several important decisions to make in regards to free agency. While the team has a limited amount of cap space, right now… they should be retooling a few contracts or cutting their ties with some players soon which will create more cap room. Check with our old friend @patscap for the latest on the salary cap goings on.
We’ll be doing profiles on each of the free agents in the upcoming days and give you our take on whether they return or move on. One of the key players facing free agency is wide receiver, Danny Amendola.
Amendola has heard the doubts since high school, recruiters told him he wasn’t Division I material but he made the team at Texas Tech. After going undrafted, he turned heads at the Cowboys training camp but was cut and then spent time on their practice squad as well as the Eagles. After he had success with the Rams when finally given a chance, he heard plenty of criticism when the Patriots signed him to replace Wes Welker.
He’s not hearing it anymore. Amendola has become one of the Patriots biggest playmakers in the past four years. While he’ll never come close to 100 catches like Welker did in his time here, he’s become a crunch-time star, or as his teammates call him “Danny Playoffs” or “Playoff ‘Dola” for his penchant of big-time catches when the stage is the biggest.
He has the surest hands on the team and it is a true rarity to see him drop a catchable ball. Amendola is also a versatile, hard-working player who will do anything asked of him and his work on special teams in the punt return game can’t be overlooked. He set up the game-winning touchdown (which he caught) against Jacksonville in the AFC Championship Game with a big punt return that set the Patriots up for the winning score.
Why Amendola Will Return: The Patriots and Amendola have a good thing going for themselves. They’ve figured out a way to best utilize his talents and he’s thrived in it. He occupies a key spot in Tom Brady’s circle of trust. If you watched any of Brady’s “Tom vs Time” docu-series episodes, you’d see Brady, Julian Edelman, and Amendola working out before training camp together in Montana.
That speaks volumes of how the QB feels about his wide receivers and how the bond between the three is cemented in hard work and trust. The three of them share a common bond that no one believed in any of them. And now they’ve won a pair of Super Bowls together and that collective chip on their shoulder will forever fuel them regardless of their success.
Amendola has the toughness and the ability to do the dirty work in the middle of the field where he takes a beating at times. In his first Patriots game in Buffalo, he tore his groin muscle right off the bone and then played the entire season like that.
The Patriots limited his pitch count this season, he played in just under 50 percent of the offensive snaps this season, because and especially so, once they lost Julian Edelman in the preseason, they needed a healthy and fresh Amendola for the playoff run.
And he delivered once again. The team won’t have to break the bank for him, but they’ll have to pony up more money than they have in the past, where they’ve renegotiated his deal, seemingly every year.
Why Amendola Won’t Return: There were concerns that if Josh McDaniels left for Indianapolis, that he’d try to entice Amendola into leaving with him and he’d become the invaluable piece that he was in New England with the Colts. McDaniels and Amendola have a ton of mutual respect for one another and that was a definite possibility. Now that one has been squashed as McDaniels is staying.
There is still the off chance that a team will try to wow him with a bunch of money after his playoff run where he was outstanding in all three playoff games for the Patriots.
And of course, the Patriots may decide to low-ball him so much that he feels like he has to move on and take the money elsewhere. But those last two scenarios are both of the low percentage variety.
Bottom Line: The Patriots, as we mentioned above, have some interesting decisions to make this spring. This shouldn’t be one of them. Amendola is a proven performer on the big stage. His playoff run with 26 catches for 348 yards and two TDs is the production that elite receivers look for in the playoffs.
While no one is saying he’s elite, however, he is, in this offense, invaluable. He has the absolute trust of his coaches and his quarterback. His toughness is unquestioned and he possesses the best hands on the team. His ability to find the openings in zone coverage and get open quickly in man coverage are perfect fits for the team.
Furthermore, he loves playing here in New England, for this coach and this quarterback. He’s learned the Belichick method of answering questions at his press conferences, never giving much up and very much sticking to the company line. But during training camp, we were there when Mike Reiss asked him about his taking another pay cut and what his feelings were about coming back for another go with the Patriots. He made it very clear that there is New England and not much else in terms of where he wants to be. Check out the video clip.
While there are some “must sign” free agents, let his name be at the top of the list. Chances of his returning should be around 90 percent for 2018.
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A former US Army Special Forces NCO and Officer, Steve has been following the Patriots since their days at Fenway Park. Steve has worked in the film industry and wrote as an Military Editor at SpecialOperations.com, 1945.com as a reporter for the Millbury Daily Voice, Millbury-Sutton Chronicle, and the Grafton News. He's also a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA)
