SB Nation User Blog: NESilver

Pats’ Rookies Win Symposium Challenge

NESilver — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:39:06 -0000

Pats’ Rookies Win Symposium Challenge

According to the Patriots, for the second year in a row the New England rookies won the "Ultimate Rookie Challenge" at the NFL Rookie Symposium in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. The challenge, which takes place on the final day of the annual conference, comes at the end of a series of seminars on things like financial management, the personal conduct code, the league’s banned-substance policy and how to deal with the media, and is designed to test rookies in the material they learned at the four-day event.

Scout.com: New England Patriots sign Rich Ohrnberger

NESilver — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:48:15 -0000

Scout.com: New England Patriots sign Rich Ohrnberger

The New England Patriots have agreed to contract terms with fourth-round pick (no. 23 in the round/#123 overall) OL Rich Ohrnberger, a league source told Scout.com. It's a four-year deal worth roughly $2.20 million. The deal includes a $451,000 signing bonus. Last year's No. 23 pick in the fourth round, RB Tashard Choice/Dallas Cowboys, received a signing bonus of $439,000.

FA Profile: RB Fred Taylor

NESilver — Sun, 24 May 2009 19:58:32 -0000

via nesnblogs.files.wordpress.com

View full size photo uploaded May 24, 2009

Date of Birth: January 27, 1976 (1976-01-27) (age 33)
Place of Birth: Pahokee, Florida
Height: 6 ft. 1 in.
Weight: 228 lb.
College: Florida
High School: Glades Central HS (Belle Glade, FL)
NFL Draft: 1998 - 1st Round - 9th overall
Experience: 12th season
Jersey Number: #21
Contract Details: 2 years, $5 million. Includes $1.45 million signing bonus and base salaries of $1.55 million (2009) and $2 million (2010).

Fred Taylor has spent his entire career in the NFL playing for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Up until now, that is. After visiting with the Buffalo Bills and the New England Patriots, Taylor ultimately chose to come play for Bill Belichick and the Pats as he enters the final stages of his illustrious career.

This is old news at this point, considering his signing came way back during the early days of free agency, but there's still plenty to be excited about.

First and foremost, the guy is an established veteran (and we know Bill likes his vets), who's hungry for a Super Bowl win. Sounds like he'll fit right in. Here's what Taylor had to say back when he was still a free agent:

“I want to play in a Super Bowl so bad, and the Super Bowl’s down here in Miami next year. I want to be in that game. Two years ago, Plaxico [Burress], my child’s godfather, won the Super Bowl. This year, my little cousin from Belle Glade [Fla.], Santonio Holmes, was the MVP in the biggest game in the world. My taste for that game is getting stronger and stronger. And honestly, I feel fresh. I get inspired by young guys and showing them what I can do. There are a lot of young guys I’m still quicker than. God gave me a lot when he was handing out ability. I still have a lot.”

This is ultimately what attracted Fred Taylor to come join the Pats - a chance for a ring (I mean... I can't imagine it being the weather, can you?). Taylor helps to fill the void left by Lamont Jordan's departure and joins a stable that already consists of Laurence Maroney, Sammy Morris, Kevin Faulk, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Omar Cuff, and Eric Kettani (as recently outlined by MaPatsFan here). The Patriots like to employ a RB-by-committee approach, so the depth is important, as we witnessed last year when injuries hit. Taylor shouldn't have any problem splitting the carries; he shared the load with RB Maurice Jones-Drew the last few years in Jacksonville, and the two were quite the 1-2 punch during his time there. Adalius Thomas agrees:

"I'd hate to be on the other side," said Thomas. "You got Kevin, you got Sammy, you got Laurence, you got BenJarvus Green-Ellis and you got Fred. If all the guys are up, by the fourth quarter nobody is really tired. You're kind of fresh. It might not play off the first game, but when you get to Week 10, 11 or 12 and people are starting to wear down I think that, barring injury, that can definitely be a great asset with the different ways you can use them."

I'll be quite frank and say that I'm really excited about having Fred Taylor in New England. The guy can flat out run. However, whenever I'm looking to have my enthusiasm tempered about an incoming free agent, I normally ask myself, "why is this guy available in the first place?" In this case, the Jaguars were looking to get younger and they weren't ready to deal with the $6 million cap hit that would've come along had they kept him.

He is also statistically coming off one of his worst years as a pro. In 2008, he had 143 carries for 556 yards rushing (3.9 yards per carry). Those numbers aren't necessarily his fault considering Jacksonville's injury woes last year. They were decimated with injuries to their offensive line, and Jones-Drew was affected as well by seeing his yards per carry drop to 4.2. Without any real threats at wide receiver, the opposition was allowed to crowd the box and stuff the run. The Jags consequently finished their season at 5-11.

Still, he is only two years removed from an All-Pro season in 2007, and he's motivated. Did you know that he's 16th all-time in rushing yards with 11,271? One of Taylor's goals is to pass Jim Brown before he retires. He only trails him by 1,041 yards, and he's already passed former New England favorite Corey Dillon on his way there. Taylor is also the 5th best all-time in yards per carry with 4.6, behind only Jim Brown (5.2), Barry Sanders (5.0), O.J. Simpson (4.7) and Tiki Barber (4.7). That's impressive production for a guy once labeled as "fragile."

Best of luck to you in New England, "Fast Freddy!"

Fred Taylor Links
Pats Pulpit - Interview: New England Patriots RB Fred Taylor
Reiss's Pieces: OTA Video
Shalize Manza Young: Fred Taylor elated to be learning playbook
Reiss's Pieces: 3 with Fred Taylor
Reiss's Pieces: Kyle Brady talks Fred Taylor
YouTube: Video Highlights (props to MaPatsFan for finding this one)

2009 NFL Draft: New England Patriots Recap

NESilver — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:51:42 -0000

More photos » by Jason DeCrow - AP

Browse more photos »

The draft is finally behind us. After much speculation about who the Patriots would select, here are the players Bill Belichick and the front office ultimately chose to be a part of New England.

2nd Round (32nd overall): Patrick Chung, SS - Oregon
2nd Round (40th overall): Ron Brace, DT - Boston College
2nd Round (41st overall): Darius Butler, CB - Connecticut
2nd Round (58th overall): Sebastian Vollmer, OL - Houston
3rd Round (83rd overall): Brandon Tate, WR - North Carolina
3rd Round (97th overall): Tyrone McKenzie, OLB - South Florida
4th Round (123rd overall): Rich Ohrnberger, OG - Penn State
5th Round (170th overall): George Bussey, OT - Louisville
6th Round (198th overall): Jake Ingram, LS - Hawaii
6th Round (207th overall): Myron Pryor, DT - Kentucky
7th Round (232nd overall): Julian Edelman, QB/WR - Kent State
7th Round (234th overall): Darryl Richard, DT - Georgia Tech

There you have it, folks. That's a haul of 12 rookies for 2009. Broken down by position, that's 3 defensive linemen, 3 offensive linemen, 2 wide receivers, 1 cornerback, 1 linebacker, 1 safety, and 1 long snapper.

The Patriots also traded cornerback Ellis Hobbs to the Philadelphia Eagles for both of their fifth round picks. Finally, the Patriots stocked themselves pretty well for the future, trading two of their third round selections to the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Tennessee Titans. In return, the Pats received their 2010 second round picks (so make sure you root against these guys next year!). Those picks may be extra important with all of our potential free agents coming up, depending on how the CBA situation plays out.

Lions, Matthew Stafford come to terms - SI.com - NFL Draft

NESilver — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 03:34:04 -0000

Lions, Matthew Stafford come to terms - SI.com - NFL Draft

There will not be a holdout with the top pick in the 2009 NFL draft. The Detroit Lions and agents for Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford reached an agreement on a record-setting contract that will pay Stafford a guaranteed $41.7 million.

New England Patriots: Pre-Draft Visits

NESilver — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 02:26:02 -0000

On the eve of the 2009 NFL Draft, it's only natural to wonder who the heck the New England Patriots are targeting in this year's crop of rookies. It's tough to get a clear picture on who exactly Bill Belichick and the front office covet, but sometimes pre-draft visits can give us an idea of who they're taking a look at.

With only thirty total pre-draft visits allowed by the league each year, who have the Patriots brought into the facilities thus far? The following list I'm about to present should answer that question (although, unfortunately, I've only gotten 28 out of 30, so if any of you know who the other two are that I've missed, please feel free to mention them). The Patriots don't always bring their coveted player in for a visit, but we did bring Jerod Mayo in last year, so take this list for what it's worth.

I'll be splitting players into offense and defense, with their position in parenthesis.

Offense

Andre Smith (OL)
Rich Ohrnberger (OL)
Shawn Nelson (TE)
Bear Pasco (TE)
Andre Brown (RB)
Brooks Foster (WR)
Brandon Tate (WR)
Johnny Knox (WR)
Stephen McGee (QB)
Pat White (QB)

Defense

Robert Ayers (DL)
Evander "Ziggy" Hood (DL)
Jarron Gilbert (DL)
Terrence Knighton (DL)
Adrian Grady (DL)
Tyrone McKenzie (LB)
Jason Williams (LB)
Connor Barwin (DE/OLB/TE)
Larry English (DE/OLB)
Lawrence Sidbury (DE/OLB)
Malcolm Jenkins (CB/S)
Alphonso Smith (CB)
Vontae Davis (CB)
Tony Carter (CB)
Louis Delmas (S)
William Moore (S)
Patrick Chung (S)
Chris Clemons (S)

FA Signing: Patriots Sign WR Joey Galloway

NESilver — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:00:32 -0000

Height: 5-11 Weight: 197 Age: 37
Born: 11/20/1971 Bellaire , OH
College: Ohio State
Experience: 15th season
High School: Bellaire HS [OH]

The departure of Jabar Gaffney has created an opening to our #3 wide receiver spot (or #2, depending on how you look at it). After visiting with the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers, Joey Galloway found a new home with our New England Patriots, inking a one-year contract with a base salary of $1.15 million, according to Mike Reiss (who indicates that Galloway may have had a bit of leverage in negotiations, which is why the contract is worth more than the veteran minimum).

Joey Galloway brings a boatload of experience. He'll be entering his fifteenth season in the league this year after previous stints with the Seattle Seahawks (who drafted him eighth overall back in 1995), Dallas Cowboys, and most recently with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He had three straight years of 1,000 yards receiving with the Bucs, including a career year in 2005 where he had a career high 83 receptions for 1,287 yards and 10 touchdowns. In 2006, he made 62 receptions for 1,057 yards and 7 touchdowns while starting 14 games. In 2007, he made 57 receptions for 1,014 yards and 6 touchdowns while playing in 15 games. His 2008 season was cut short due to a foot injury, limiting him to just 13 receptions for 138 yards.

What will he bring in 2009?

In a conference call with the New England media, Galloway insisted that his foot was fully healed for this upcoming season, and that it had been healed for quite a while now.

"Yes, the injury was a bone situation. It happened early in the season. It was a six-game injury. It's completely done, and yeah, the foot is fine."

Mr. Galloway has played in a total of 185 games, including 169 starts and totaling 682 receptions for 10,710 yards (15.7 avg.) and 77 career touchdowns. Oh yeah, and that 15.7 yards per catch career average? It's the highest of any active NFL player with 300 or more receptions. Our very own Randy Moss ranks in second with 15.66. Nice stats, eh?

So what can we expect from him on the Patriots this year? Well, he'll have to compete with recently acquired Greg Lewis for that vacant spot at WR, for starters. Competition is a good thing, though, as it can only mean that we're putting the best football players on the field when September rolls around. Jobs are to be earned, no matter how long you've been in the league, but at a one-year deal we're talking about a low-risk, high reward type of situation.

Forget about his age for a moment. Up until the foot injury, Joey Galloway still displayed some blazing speed and excellent hands. If he still manages to be that other deep threat opposite Randy Moss, the Patriots can stretch defenses out and give Wes Welker even more breathing room on those underneath routes (like we expected with Stallworth). He also used to be a pretty good punt returner, but at this point in his career, I think the Patriots would let one of the other guys handle that duty.

Now, another deep threat is nice, but Mike Reiss recently hinted in his mailbag at another part of Galloway's game that would raise his value to the team, and it's something Bill Belichick absolutely covets: versatility.

Hi Mike, I like the recent signing of Joey Galloway because he's an experienced, veteran receiver. I feel like he might be able to step in and fill the hole left by Jabar Gaffney. However, he is 37 years old, and I wonder if he still has enough speed to stretch a defense the way he used to. It would be ideal if he could line up outside, and let Welker play the slot. Do you think this is how the Pats envision the WR corps starting next season? With Galloway and Moss on the outsides, and Welker picking teams apart in the slot?
Zack, Somerville

A: I think that is definitely part of the thinking, Zack. But in listening to Bill Belichick talk about Galloway on his WEEI "Big Show" interview last week, it sounded to me like versatility was a big part of the appeal. Galloway will probably learn all the receiver spots - similar to Jabar Gaffney - which will allow the Patriots to continue to be a game-plan type of offense that morphs its plan specific to each week's opponent. That will also increase Galloway's value to be on the 45-man game-day roster.

The negative aspect to this signing is that Galloway may potentially be just a stop-gap player due to his age, but there is a reason Bill Belichick signs veteran players such as these in the twilight of their careers (apart from the obvious amount of experience that they bring). Belichick recently touched on this subject in an interview with Alex Marvez from Fox Sports.

"You know what you're getting when it comes to the level of commitment of those players," Belichick said. "They know their time is somewhat limited so you usually get a player's best shot at that point in their careers."

All right, Galloway! Give us your best shot, and welcome to New England! (Please, oh please, don't pull a Fernando Bryant on us!)

Patriots announce five signings

NESilver — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:24:55 -0000

Patriots announce five signings

The Patriots had a couple of transactions today, but so far none of them involved Carolina Panthers pass rusher Julius Peppers. The team announced today that it had signed five players, including free agent offensive lineman Al Johnson.

The Patriots also made official the re-signing of nose tackle/defensive end Mike Wright, who received a four-year deal for about $7.5 million with playing time escalators that could increase the value of the deal by about $10 million, and announced that they had also re-signed offensive lineman Wesley Britt and safeties Ray Ventrone and Tank Williams.

- Christopher L. Gasper

New England Patriots - Rookie and Sophomore Contributions (Part 1)

NESilver — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:57:32 -0000

Hey everyone, welcome to the NESilver version of Pats Pulpit! That's right! I'm taking over! Mwahaha... oh, sorry, did I say that out loud? Ahem. Anyway... I'll be taking over the stat duties, and splitting time with MaPatsFan on position profiles and free agent signings. We'll get a good rotation going there. Consider us a bit like Gary Guyton and Tedy Bruschi, or Laurence Maroney and Sammy Morris. Wait, does that mean one of us is gonna be injured frequently? Hmm... this wasn't in the job description...

Okay, so with that out of the way, I wanted to focus on our most recent draftees with my first post. I figured that would be a good way to kick things off, since we're getting closer to the draft and all. It's an exciting time of year, where everyone's excited about how well their team will do next season, and you can definitely include me in that bunch. Just for the record, I am a BIG optimist and a major homer for our New England Patriots, which means I fully expect every single one of our draftees to turn into studs and Pro-Bowlers every year. Is that really so unreasonable? I sure don't think so.

With that said, here's the list of our draft picks for the past two years who are currently still a part of the team.

Sophomores (2007 Class)
Brandon Meriweather - 1st Round, 24th overall
Mike Richardson - 6th Round, 202nd overall
Matt Gutierrez - Undrafted Rookie Free Agent

Rookies (2008 Class)
Jerod Mayo - 1st Round, 10th overall
Terrence Wheatley - 2nd Round, 62nd overall
Shawn Crable - 3rd Round, 78th overall
Kevin O'Connell - 3rd Round, 94th overall
Jonathan Wilhite - 4th Round, 129th overall
Matthew Slater - 5th Round, 153rd overall
Bo Ruud - 6th Round, 197th overall
Gary Guyton - Undrafted Rookie Free Agent
BenJarvus Green-Ellis - Undrafted Rookie Free Agent
Vince Redd - Undrafted Rookie Free Agent

As you probably gathered from the title, I'll be splitting this into two parts. We'll start with the sophomore class in this post. Bill Belichick has often said that the biggest leap in improvement for a football player is usually between their first and second year in the league (which means we should be pretty excited about some of our rookies who got significant playing time this year - woohoo!).

The big name on that list is Brandon Meriweather, our first rounder from 2007. He began his first year predominantly on special teams, though he did occasionally see time on defense. He recorded 27 tackles in his first year, and although he seemed to be around the ball often enough, the big knock against him were the interceptions he dropped. He dropped at least three of them, including a potential game-ender against the Baltimore Ravens and another one during the playoffs, in "The game that shall not be mentioned." Despite showing some potential, there were some people who were a little down on him. Here are the stats for his second year:

		Sacks		Interceptions			Tackles
	G	Sacks	YdsL	Int	Yds	IntTD	Solo	Ast	Total
2008 - Brandon Meriweather	16	2.0	19	4	25	0	57	20	77

In 2008, he became a bigger part of the rotation at safety with Sanders and Harrison, and he worked hard during the offseason to improve those stone hands with a jugs machine. The difference was clearly noticeable this past year, as Meriweather notched his first career interception during Week 2 against the Jets, picking off the non-retired Brett Favre. After Rodney Harrison was injured on Week 7 and done for the season, Meriweather didn't miss a single snap on defense (according to Reiss, he was present for 85% of the defensive snaps in total), recording 83 total tackles (I'm going off NFL.com with this one, SBNation says 77 for some reason), 4 interceptions, and 9 passes defended.. He also notched two sacks, including a strip-sack to clinch the game against the Seattle Seahawks. While there's still plenty of room for improvement, Brandon Meriweather looks to be a keeper thus far.

Mike Richardson and Matt Gutierrez are more difficult to gauge in terms of improvement. Both of these players are far down the depth chart, and because they don't see a ton of playing time, there aren't many stats to work with (so no pretty little stat box for these guys). Richardson spent his entire rookie season on IR and started his 2008 campaign on the practice squad. He was finally activated to the roster during Week 7 against the Denver Broncos. He played for six games and recorded 17 total tackles.

Matt Gutierrez got a little bit of playing time in 2007 when games were far out of reach, but nothing significant. In 2008, he was being hyped up by the media as the guy who would supplant Matt Cassel for the backup quarterback position, only to get cut at the end of preseason (though he was later brought back to the practice squad). However, when Tom Brady was injured, Gutierrez found himself back on the roster as the emergency quarterback, so he's managed to stick around. Bill Belichick has praised him for his strong work ethic before, but he finds himself behind Kevin O'Connel and Tom Brady heading into 2009. In preseason, he went 29-of-45 for 362 yards, 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. He saw no playing time during the regular season.

Next fanpost I'll focus on our gigantic rookie class (at least, in comparison to the sophomores).

Bill Belichick and Charlie Weis sing with Bon Jovi for Charlie's daughter's charity.

NESilver — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:52:44 -0000

Bill Belichick and Charlie Weis sing with Bon Jovi for Charlie's daughter's charity.