Bob Kraft Makes Some Uncharacteristic Statements

Bob Kraft is a great owner in a lot of ways. He makes a few statements here or there in which he mostly puts out the Patriotspeak. Nothing overly controversial, mostly positive and supportive statements. He's well respected in the community for keeping the team in Massachusetts not once, but twice. He gets involved with things like the recent labor dispute and was instrumental in progressing the talks, ensuring that football wouldn't suffer from the lockouts that have been plaguing sports like hockey and basketball recently. He doesn't skimp out, he spends up to the cap every season and has invested a lot of money into facilities at Patriot Place. He thinks big, he sets the tone for the organization and he's learned that a good owner knows to delegate and get out of his own way. That's why I was really surprised by some of the statements Kraft made at the owners meeting. Some of the lines that the media have been blowing up lately are not his usual fare.

"I don't answer to Tom Brady"

It's 100% true and when you add some more context he dovetails it nicely by pointing out that Brady's an important member of the team and saying that he spoke to Brady, but it's just such a combative reply. The guy just took a pay cut to improve your football team and he's the most beloved figure in the history of the organization, there has to be a more diplomatic way to phrase this.

"Wes Welker, just to be very clear, was our first choice to be with the team,"

Why would you ever say something like that? It sounds like something the Red Sox ownership would say. "Just so you know Danny, you're our second choice." It reminds me of what Red Sox ownership said about Carl Crawford after Theo Epstein left town.

Beyond these things, we got some insight into what happened with Wes Welker. The way Kraft tells it, there was a significant disparity in how they evaluated Welker compared to how he and his representatives evaluated him. Welker hit the open market and the Patriots started looking at other options. From how it sounds, when Welker approached them with the offer from Denver they had already committed themselves to Danny Amendola.


"Wednesday, I personally got a call from Wes and he told me about this offer from Denver. He called Bill [Belichick] as well. We met and we chatted. We have a lot of people, we've committed a lot of money to this inside position you have Gronk [Rob Gronkowski], you have [Aaron] Hernandez, you have Danny [Amendola] now it was just unfortunately a little bit too late.

"If he had called one day earlier, he would have been with us. I'm very sad about it and I wish he would have been with our team."

The belief was that the Amendola signing was a quick reaction to Wes Welker signing with Denver. The way it's portrayed by Kraft here the Amendola deal was finished first. Kraft went on to say that he felt the offer the Patriots gave Welker was the better deal because it had more guaranteed money and speculated that the Broncos would cut him after one season as none of the second year money is guaranteed and the cap hits are $4 Million for the first year and jumps to $8 Million for the second year. He might be right, but it still feels like he's crying over spilled milk, something I believed was beneath an organization that prides itself on professionalism.

Well The Classless Organization Does More Classless Stuff

Other than cheating to win Superbowls, the second best thing the Patriots do is not re-sign or get rid of impact players that they really need. Their GM has odd ways of doing things. We have seen this in the past when the Patriots traded Richard Seymour, Asante Samuel, Adam Viniteiri, among others and it has really hurt them for a long time. Hell for how long have the Patriots been looking for a pass rusher, in fact, they still haven't found one, we have to wait and see what Chandler Jones turns into. The same can be said for their secondary, it seems like there is a forever, rotating secondary and they are often ranked near the bottom of the list, and maybe is Adam Viniteiri is still on the team Bill kicks the 48 yard field goal in the Superbowl and they win, instead of going for it. The most peculiar thing about Wes Welker is, that the guys above got mega contracts, Wes got a 2 year 12 million dollar deal. That's 6 a year. For someone who has been over 100 catches and 1000 yards with Brady for 5 years, 6 million for 2 years seems awfully reasonable. Also the thing Wes had that a lot of other WRs don't is the camaraderie he has with Brady, look in the past how hard this is to grip for other WRs, where Chad Ochocinco, Brandon Lloyd, Joey Galloway, Torry Holt, Doug Gabriel and others have failed, are we 100% positive that Danny Amendola will be able to pick it up without a pitch.

Now lets move on to Wes' replacement, Danny Amendola. The Pats counter Welker to the Broncos by giving Amendola an asinine 5 year, 31 million dollar deal. I just don't get the logic of paying someone who is unproven in the system, injury prone, and less productive more money for more years. I guess, you can say they did the same thing with Wes essentially with the trade to get him from the Dolphins, but they at least traded for him. Maybe Belichick really likes white guys from Texas Tech, but I just don't think Amendola is an upgrade at all. If you had to have 2 years from Welker or Amendola on the Patriots you 100% take Welker. I would be willing to bet anything that Amendola misses more games than Welker did in his patriot career, this year (3).

Many Patriot fanboys will bring up the Welker drops or definitely the drop in the Superbowl, which you can put 50% on Brady btw. But that shouldn't matter in this, Welker had 5 seasons in which he went over 100 catches and 1000 yards with the Patriots, had a great rapport with Brady, it seems awfully like someone in the Patriots organization had a vendetta against him. They fucked with him last year, they were blatantly phasing him out this year and then lowballed him on an already fair deal.

Also, there are already reports close to brady that say he's infuriated by this whoel thing. “He’s got so much pressure on his shoulders now — again,” the source close to Brady told Mike Silver of Yahoo! Sports. “If the offense doesn’t perform at a high level, they’re screwed. This is unbelievable. It’s hard not to feel like they’ve sold him out.” So pissing off your star QB who took less money, is always a nice thing to do.

Maybe they just want an all injury prone offense with Gronk, Hernandez, Edleman and Amendola. Oh well.

Wes Welker Out, Danny Amendola In

The Patriots made some shocking moves yesterday that really have me perturbed. Wes Welker signed a 2-year contract for $12 Million with the Denver Broncos, one of the Patriots AFC rivals. Within a matter of hours the Patriots had signed St. Louis Rams Slot Receiver Danny Amendola to a 5-year contract for $31 Million, only $10 million of which is guaranteed money. On the surface this deal doesn't make much sense. Why would you break up one of the most productive quarterback/wide receiver duos in the history of football and then offer more money and years to a very similar player who has been less productive and has some durability questions?

First, a little information about Danny Amendola. As you can see from the graphic above, Amendola has been drawing comparisons to Wes Welker for his entire career at the NFL level, and with good reason. Amendola was literally Welker's replacement at Texas Tech after Welker went pro. They were both initially undrafted and had to sign as undrafted free agents. Welker was able to work his way onto the roster almost immediately where Amendola had to work his way up from the practice squad. They play similar roles with similar styles and have similar builds. Some people have noted that Amendola's production is also very similar to Wes Welker's numbers in Miami before coming to the Patriots.

Wes Welker 2006 Stats:
16 Games Played
67 Catches
99 Targets
687 Yards
10.3 Avg
1 TD

Danny Amendola 2012 Stats:
11 Games Played
63 Catches
101 Targets
666 Yards
10.6 Avg
3 TD

You'll notice that the only really substantial difference in these figures is in the games played category, and this has been the point where Amendola and Welker diverge. In Welker's career he has missed 3 games in the regular season and 1 playoff game in 2009. By comparison, Amendola has missed 20 games over the past two seasons with the Rams. Maybe it's just dumb luck that Welker's only serious injury, a torn ACL/MCL, came in week 17 and Danny Amendola's dislocated elbow came in the first game of the season. The same could be said about the dislocated clavicle injury that kept Amendola out of 3 games last year.

So let's take a hard look at some of the reasons the Patriots chose to move on from Welker to Amendola.

1) Wes Welker is a few years older than Amendola. We haven't seen Wes' numbers decline substantially as he's gotten older, but age tends to hit wide receivers pretty hard. Wes may be coming off of his prime and Amendola may be just coming into his prime.

2) Although the sum total of Amendola's deal has him getting more money per year than Wes' deal, only $10 Million of Amendola's deal is guaranteed money. Amendola's deal may be structured in such a way that his cap hit is low and the deal is backloaded with non-guaranteed money and the Patriots could cut ties with him relatively easily after two seasons without much issue. We may see this when the more precise terms of the deal are known.

3) Maybe there's some things about Welker that Bill Belichick and the Patriots are aware of about Wes Welker that we as outsiders are not. Does Wes have some concussion issues that have been kept under wraps? Is Wes a pain in the ass in the locker room and constantly complaining to Bill about how he's not getting paid? Does Bill see something in the film/practice field that makes him think that Wes can't keep up his production for very much longer?

4) Some of the advanced stats show that Amendola has a much better drop percentage than Welker. Drops in key moments have been the bane of Welker's career, maybe the Patriots were fed up with this deficiency in his game.

All things considered, I think I still would have taken Wes Welker over Danny Amendola. I think Amendola will fill the role well if he manages to stay on the football field, but part of me wonders if maybe the Patriots are overthinking in this scenario. Welker was playing at a high level and assuming that he was asking for the same figures he got from the Broncos the money was pretty reasonable and didn't handcuff the Patriots in the long term. He has had 6 seasons of experience working in the Patriots system and with Tom Brady. Part of me thinks that if it's not broken then don't fix it.