NE Patriots FA and Draft (ie offseason) thread

[Kneel B4 Zod]

I talked about some of this in the other thread, but w/e.

I think the Pats have had a great offseason so far. Coming into the offseason, they had a ton of cap space available, and they have been aggresive in using it. The key moves:

1. Franchising Asante Samuel. This cost us around $7.5m for this year. Given the (lack of) CB depth, this was a good move. Considering how much Clements got in FA, this looks even better. Of course, I think the prospects for a long term deal are hurt now.

2. Signing Adalius Thomas. LB was the single biggest need for the Pats, and they got the best LB (and player) available for a relatively cap friendly deal (5yr, 35m). This guy is a perfect fit - he can play all over the field, understands complex gameplans, and is all about t-e-a-m.

3. Signing Wes Welker to a 6 year deal at about $3m PA, not including the poison pill $20m 7th year. This deal will be incredibly dumb for Miami to match, so I consider it done. For those questioning the price paid of the 2nd round pick, here are the #60 picks for the last 7 years. I think the EV of this pick is much lower than Welker.

2006 Maurice Drew, RB UCLA
2005 Kelvin Hayden, CB Illinois
2004 Courtney Watson MLB Notre Dame
2003 Tyrone Calico, WR Tenessee
2002 Anton Paleopi DE Nevada Las Vegas
2001 Andre Dyson CB UTAH
2000 Brad Meester C Northern Iowa

This gives us a very quick slot guy who can be a release for Brady, as well as versatile return guy. This is important b/c they wont want Maroney to return kicks with him taking up more of the running game, b/c...

4. Waiving Corey Dillon/Signing Sammy Morris. The team is hurt in the short run by waiving Dillon, but this saves them money for this year. They picked up a capable replacement type guy in Morris, who is a good blocker and ST guy as well.

5. not signing UFA Daniel Graham/signing Kyle Brady. Typical Pats move here: they replace an expensive blocking TE with a less expensive blocking TE. Are they a better team now? No. But these are the type of 'retain 90% of the production for 60% of the price' type of deals that you need to make in the NFL.

Cap status: We'll probably have $8-12 million in cap space left after all the above deals are done. We need about $6m for draft picks and rookies. So, I think we may extend a guy like Wilfork or Warren, but probably no more FA signing are on the way.

Draft:

They have addressed the OLB need, but still need an ILB badly. The other top areas of need are CB/S/WR, but I don't expect the Pats to pick a WR with their 1st rounder now that they have used their 2nd pick on Welker. I think they go with 'best available' at ILB/S/CB with their 2 picks, in that order. Then go with WR or RB in the 3rd round/later picks.

Looking like a great offseason so far.