Opportunistic Pats Pick Up Bargain Castoff- Again!

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. The Patriots are trading a late round pick for a troubled star with a value contract. It’s so repetitive that any time a great player with problems is available the jokes start pouring in that he’ll be great for the Patriots; and it’s often come to fruition. From Randy Moss to yesterday’s trade for Josh Gordon, the Patriots continue to show that they’re not afraid of off-the-field problems. Considering their unabated success over the past two decades, I have to wonder why more teams don’t follow that strategy.

Why is it that the Patriots are seemingly the only team in the NFL that is willing to make these kind of moves? Josh Gordon led the league in receiving in 2016 while only playing in 14 games with Brandon Weeden – BRANDON WEEDEN – as his quarterback. He’s an undeniably great talent, but more importantly, he’s a great talent with a $790,000 contract. That is almost never available, so why won’t teams trade more than a 5^th rounder for it? Yes, he has off the field problems. Yes, you can’t trust him. Yes, he could cause a “distraction”. Why are the Patriots the only team that realizes that none of that matters? With that contract, who cares if he’s bad, they’ll cut him or he’ll sit on their bench. None of those risks or concerns make any difference, yet teams are so afraid of making a move that can literally only make them better. The Ochocinco and Albert Haynesworth experiments were total failures in New England, and frankly most of the Patriots high profile signings haven’t panned out, yet the “Patriot Way” is still alive and well. The fact of the matter is that signing a controversial player to a cheap contract and then cutting him simply does not harm the franchise, yet teams are deathly afraid to even try when the upside far outweighs the downside.

Of course, it helps when you have Tom Brady and Bill Belichick but again, and this really can’t be emphasized enough, Josh Gordon was catching ducks from B-R-A-N-D-O-N W-E-E-D-E-N for only 14 games and led the league in receiving yards. There are other teams out there with stability at coach and at the quarterback position – see the Green Bay Packers. I don’t mean this a joke at all – I truly think the Packers organization should be held criminally responsible for Aaron Rodgers only having one ring when they have the opportunity to get Josh Gordon for a 5^th round pick and they say “no thanks, we’re gonna roll with Geronimo and Equanimeous”. That sentence alone should get Mike McCarthy life without parole and frankly if I’m on a jury and they tell me Aaron Rodgers strangled McCarthy to death after hearing that sentence, I can’t find that man guilty.

Also, why is it that every “David” wants to trade their best players to “Goliath”? Is it that they don’t want to improve the rosters of similarly talented teams, so they just say “Hey, the Patriots are going to beat us anyway, who cares if they also have our best player.”? You’d think these teams that are perpetually chasing the Patriots and have a glaring need at WR: the Ravens, Titans, Packers, etc., would be willing to give up what’s essentially a worthless pick for the upside that comes with Josh Gordon. I’d argue that the Chiefs should’ve traded a 5^th rounder for him just to keep him away from the Patriots.

I’ll end this rambling diatribe with the following; the Green Bay Packers have a top 2 quarterback in the league and could use help at the wide receiver position. Josh Gordon is available for a fifth-round draft pick and $790,000 dollars. The Packers traded a fifth-round draft pick in the 2018 NFL draft to move up 13 spots for the honor of drafting Oren Burks, linebacker out of Vanderbilt. Oren Burks and I have played the exact same amount of minutes this year. Oren Burks is being paid $820,000 dollars this year. The Packers traded a fifth-round pick for Oren Burks and his $820,000 salary. The Packers didn’t trade a fifth-round pick for Josh Gordon and his $790,000 salary. Mike McCarthy needs to be prosecuted.

-Brando Bozo

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