Projo Pats Blog

February 24, 2008 - March 1, 2008 Archives

According to this story on yahoo.com, Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor won't be with Miami much longer.

An 11-year veteran and the 2006 NFL defensive player of the year, Taylor and Miami have apparently come to an amicable decision to part ways sometime before the draft next month.

Bill Belichick has touted Taylor's talents on many occasions, and the Pro Bowler -- who'll appear in the upcoming season of "Dancing with the Stars" -- is friends with Tom Brady. As they did with Wes Welker last year, whom they said hurt them every time they played him, could the Patriots lock up Taylor to keep him from padding his sack totals against New England?

New England has announced that linebacker Tedy Bruschi, receiver Kelley Washington and long snapper Lonie Paxton have been re-signed.

This is from the team's release:

Tedy Bruschi, 34, will enter his 13th season with the Patriots since being drafted by the team in the third round (86th overall) of the 1996 NFL Draft out of Arizona. The 6-foot-1-inch, 247-pound linebacker has been a Patriots team captain in each of the last six seasons dating back to 2002. Bruschi has led the Patriots in tackles in each of the last two seasons, totaling a team-best 99 stops in 2007 after pacing the club with 124 tackles in 2006. Over his 12-year career, Bruschi has played in 176 games with 127 starts and has recorded 1,063 tackles (679 solo), 30.5 sacks, 12 interceptions for 187 yards and four touchdowns, 61 passes defensed, 18 forced fumbles and six fumble recoveries, including one returned for a touchdown. Bruschi’s 176 games as a Patriot rank eighth on the team’s all-time list and in 2008 he will become the 10th player in team history to spend 13 or more seasons with the club.

Last season, Bruschi co-captained a Patriots defense that allowed just 288.3 yards per game – the fewest for the franchise in 28 years, dating back to when it allowed an average of 270.2 yards per game in 1979. In 2006, he was the leading tackler on a Patriots defensive unit that set a franchise record by allowing 14.8 points per game. Bruschi was the NFL’s Co-Comeback Player of the Year in 2005, returning to action six games into the season after suffering a stroke in February of that year and helping to solidify a defense that allowed a total of just 10 points over a three-game span that December. He was named to the Pro Bowl following a 2004 campaign in which he earned AFC Defensive Player of the Week honors three times and the Patriots won their third Super Bowl in four years. In 2003, Bruschi ranked second on the team with 137 tackles as the Patriots won the Super Bowl and led the NFL in allowing just 14.9 points per game. Bruschi was elected as a captain for the first time entering the 2002 season and that year became the first linebacker in team history to return two interceptions for touchdowns in the same season. In 2001, he finished third on the team with 73 tackles as the Patriots won the Super Bowl for the first time in team history. He started all 16 games in 2000 for the first time in his career, one season after recording a career-high 138 tackles in 1999. He became a regular starter for the first time in 1998. As a rookie in 1996, Bruschi was part of the Patriots’ AFC champion squad and totaled two sacks in his first Super Bowl.

Bruschi is the Patriots’ all-time leader in playoff games played, participating in 22 career postseason contests, including five Super Bowls. He is one of just 14 players in NFL history to play in five or more Super Bowls, and his 22 playoff game appearances are tied with Brett Favre and Adam Vinatieri for the lead among all active NFL players.

Lonie Paxton, 29, will enter his ninth season in New England since being signed by the Patriots as a rookie free agent out of Sacramento State on April 19, 2000. The 6-foot-2-inch, 260-pound long snapper has played in 125 career games and has provided snaps for every Patriots punt, extra point and field goal attempt in all but three regular-season games over his eight seasons.

Paxton’s consistency has played a role in the increased success of New England’s field goal units since he joined the team. In the eight years since Paxton assumed long snapping duties in 2000, New England’s field goal kickers have converted 83.0 percent of their kicks (195-for-235), a mark that ranks fifth in the league. The rate of success is in contrast to the team’s 75.0 percent field goal conversion rate (189-for-252, 23rd in the NFL) over the eight seasons that preceded Paxton’s tenure (1992-99).

Paxton has snapped on 10 career game-winning field goals and has made 13 career special teams tackles. He has snapped for every kick in the career of Stephen Gostkowski, who is the Patriots’ all-time leader in field goal percentage, converting 84.5 percent of his kicks (49-of-58).

Kelley Washington, 28, is a veteran of five NFL seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals (2003-06) and New England Patriots (2007). He was signed by the Patriots as an unrestricted free agent on March 13, 2007. The 6-foot-3-inch, 216-pound wide receiver has played in 58 career NFL games with six starts and has caught 72 passes for 893 yards (12.4 avg.) and nine touchdowns. In 2007, his first season in New England, Washington played in 14 games and finished second on the Patriots with a career-high 18 special teams tackles, including a team-best nine solo special teams stops. He recorded the first blocked punt by a Patriots player in eight years when he blocked a New York Jets punt on Dec. 16, setting up a Patriots touchdown.

Washington was drafted by the Bengals with the first selection of the third round (65th overall) in the 2003 NFL Draft. The University of Tennessee product played in all 16 games with three starts as a rookie in 2003 and caught 22 passes for 299 yards (13.6 avg.) and a career-high four touchdowns. That season, he caught a career-long 51-yard touchdown pass in a game against Pittsburgh. In 2004, Washington set career highs in receptions (31) and receiving yards (378) while scoring three touchdowns. His total receptions and total receiving yards both ranked third on the team that season behind only Chad Johnson and T.J. Houshmandzadeh. Washington played in seven games in 2005, catching 10 passes for 101 yards and a touchdown. In 2006 with the Bengals, Washington played in five games with one start and caught nine passes for 115 yards (12.8 avg.) and a touchdown.

In a bit of a surprising move, the Patriots have announced that tight end Kyle Brady has been released.

Brady, who struggled with plantar fasciitis -- an inflammation of the tissue that connects the toes to the heel -- for much of the season, receiving cortisone shots to minimize the pain. Brought in as a blocking back after New England lost Daniel Graham to free agency last season, Brady played in 14 games with nine catches for 70 yards and two touchdowns.

The 13-year veteran signed a two-year contract with the Pats last year.

We saw this late last night, and in the busy-ness of today forgot to post it: according to this story, Kevin Faulk, who was cited for misdemeanor marijuana possession at a concert last Friday in his home state of Louisiana, passed a drug test and will not have to enter the NFL's substance abuse program.

In the article, Faulk states that the blunts found in the jacket he had on him during a security search and the jacket itself were not his. He said he was upfront with coach Bill Belichick and the Patriots about what had happened and took the drug test on Monday.

Asante Samuel is now a Philadelphia Eagle. The cornerback has signed a six-year deal with the NFC East team, for a reported $57 million. The first three years -- the years that really matter in an NFL contract -- are $32 million, an impressive sum for the former fourth-round draft pick, who has 22 interceptions over the last three seasons.

The deal was done quickly, as Samuel arrived in Philadelphia late this morning and was part of an introductory press conference before 5 p.m. It seems unlikely that it all got done after 12:01 a.m. today -- the official time free agency began -- but that kind of tampering is something that apparently most NFL teams accept.

But once Samuel got to the City of Brotherly Love, the Eagles weren't going to let him leave without a deal being done.

Click the play button below to listen and watch.

If the Philadelphia Eagles website is any indication, the team is excited to welcome free-agent Asante Samuel to the city today.

We'll let you know if we hear anything more -- or if Samuel will be making the City of Brotherly Love his new home.

Junior Seau told the Associated Press today that he had arthroscopic surgery on his left rotator cuff just days after the Patriots lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl.

Seau said he was hurt in the fourth game of the season, in Cincinnati, but played the season in pain. He never appeared on the Patriots' injury report this season.

"There's no grace time there," he said. "I was caught in a wrong position. I just fell on it awkwardly. I felt it and it didn't recover. So I had to deal with it. Every player has an injury during the course of the year. In order to get through it, you have to persevere. No 1, you have to make sure you're not a liability. Obviously that was not the case."

The 39-year old Seau becomes a free agent at midnight, and is still deciding whether he will return for a 19th NFL season.

"I have a choice of playing or a choice of surfing. Those are great choices to have," Seau said.

The deadline to for teams to tender restricted free agents passed at 4 p.m., and New England tendered defensive lineman Mike Wright at the second-round level, meaning he has a one-year, $1.41 million deal with the team (unless the sides work out an extension) -- or, if another team offers Wright a contract that the Patriots decide not to match, that team must surrender its second-round pick to the Pats.

Wright joined New England as an undrafted rookie, making it difficult to tender him at the "low" level. Players given that designation receive $927,000, but if another team signs the player, his original team receives a draft pick equal to the round the player was originally selected in. Since Wright was undrafted out of Cincinnati, the Patriots would receive nothing in return.

The 25-year old Cincinnati native finished last season on injured reserve after suffering a knee injury against Pittsburgh.

Through AP Video, we will have live coverage of today's hearings in the House of Representatives on drug use in sports. The hearings will begin at 9:30; go to this link to watch.

Expected to testify: Former Sen. George Mitchell; MLB Commissioner Bud Selig; NBA Commissioner David Stem; MLB Players Association Executive Director Donald Fehr; NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell; NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman; NFLPA Executive Director Gene Upshaw; NHLPA Executive Director Paul Kelly; USOC Executive Director Jim Scheer; U.S. Anti Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart; NCAA President Myles Brand; Robert Kanaby, Executive Director, National Federation of State High School Associations; Alexander Waldrop, CEO, National Throughbred Racing Association.

According to Louisiana station KATC, Patriots running back Kevin Faulk was cited for misdemeanor marijuana possession on Friday night.

(This is a correction of an earlier posting which said Faulk was arrested.)

Faulk, a team captain last season, was at the Cajundome for a concert featuring rapper Lil Wayne and a random security check turned up four joints.

He is the second Patriots player this month to be cited for marijuana -- just days after the team's Super Bowl loss, special teams standout Willie Andrews was arrested in Lowell, Mass.

New England has announced that veteran linebacker Rosevelt Colvin as well as Oscar Lua have both been cut by the team.

Colvin's release, first reported by the Boston Globe earlier today, is something of a surprise. Though he was set to earn $7.6 million this season, the final year of the six-year free agent deal he signed in 2003, New England's linebacking situation is very much in flux: Tedy Bruschi and/or Junior Seau could decide to retire, and while Adalius Thomas and Mike Vrabel both are experienced at middle linebacker, backups Pierre Woods (an OLB) and Eric Alexander (MLB) are both inexperienced at this point.

However, Colvin suffered season-ending injuries in both 2003 -- a hip injury that initially was believed to be career-threatening -- and this season, when a foot injury in November 25 put him on the shelf. Without Colvin, the Pats' pass rush seemed to suffer.

The move saves New England $5.5 million (Colvin's base salary for the season) against the salary cap by releasing him.

Lua was drafted in the seventh round out of USC last year and was placed on injured reserve with a knee injury before the regular season began. It was believed he would be part of the future at middle linebacker.

East Providence native Jamie Silva just made his media debut here at the Combine, his shoulder-length dirty-blonde hair held back with a thin elastic headband, and wearing the week's uniform -- a dark gray sweatshirt with his critical information on it: DB40 on the front and "Silva 40" on the back. The numbers are assigned alphabetically, so Silva comes 40th on the list of 57 defensive backs at the Combine.

Silva came into the media room just before 12:30 p.m., and his day was already nearly eight hours old -- he woke up at 4:45 a.m. to begin his testing, which started with a urine test, and then included dozens of medical tests and then his measurements. Teams measure every conceivable thing, from height to body fat and weight to hands, thighs and arms.

Still left today are meetings with teams, a dinner with the other members of Group 11, the final testing group of the Combine. Silva and the other members of Group 11, including Kansas star Aqib Talib and I-AA standout Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie (cousin of San Diego Pro Bowler Antonio Cromartie), won't go through their on-field testing until Tuesday, but we'll be checking in with him for the next few days to give you a better idea of what it's like to go through this four-day job interview through Silva's eyes.