Pats actively seeking vet safety per Rap

tombonneau said:

Makes a ton of sense to me. I fully expect it to be Darren Sharper.

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I really hope so

Could Gary Guyton play strong safety? He's fast and supposed to be good in coverage.

When Don Davis played there, he had been an LB.

Dessalines said:

If it is to be Sharper why didn't they bring him into camp when they worked him out about two weeks ago?

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Could be his decision. He may be waiting to see if he can get a bigger deal than the Pats offered.

JDSal45 said:

Could be his decision. He may be waiting to see if he can get a bigger deal than the Pats offered.

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could also be waiting until after week 1 so we dont have to guarantee his salary.

tombonneau said:

I don't know. As another poster said, why did they cut Page? The answer is they don't always have all the answers all the time and make mistakes.

Maybe at the time they were happy with Sanders and since determined he wasn't worth the money. Maybe Sharper as a vet didn't want to have to deal with the grind of training camp. Lots of reasons.

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They didn't CUT Page. His contract was up. A better question is why did they cut Sanders if they are actively looking for a "veteran" safety? Sanders knows the system and has been a leader on the field and in the locker-room.

DaBruinz: Maybe because he sucked?

DaBruinz said:

They didn't CUT Page. His contract was up. A better question is why did they cut Sanders if they are actively looking for a "veteran" safety? Sanders knows the system and has been a leader on the field and in the locker-room.

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Sorry misspoke re-sign. The concept remains the same though, of course it could have been as much or more Page's call.

Re: why cut Sanders if you want a vet safety, I can only speculate that it was a $$ related. Thought I read he had the 10th highest cap number on the team which is just bad business for a part-time safety. Maybe looking for something comparable performance-wise for vet min.

tombonneau said:

Sorry misspoke re-sign. The concept remains the same though, of course it could have been as much or more Page's call.

Re: why cut Sanders if you want a vet safety, I can only speculate that it was a $$ related. Thought I read he had the 10th highest cap number on the team which is just bad business for a part-time safety. Maybe looking for something comparable performance-wise for vet min.

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Considering that his salary cap still wasn't THAT large and assuming they don't have a plan to extend one or more of our current players, they must be seeking someone who is between BM-Chung and a Sergio Brown in terms of playing ability. There should be players out there. Some teams may be especially deep at the position and might flirt the player for a proposed low-round conditional pick. Or we could wait for the cuts down to 53 (might not be as good a quality). Tons of players will be dumped needless to say. We've got scouts at preseason games like the rest of them. Should be easy enough to find someone.

They may have only kept Sanders around last year because they didn't know exactly what they had in Chung.

QB12 said:

DaBruinz: Maybe because he sucked?

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*sigh* Yes, Sanders sucked so bad that the Pats kept him around for 6 years and had him start 50 games.

Don't think much before you speak, do you?

DaBruinz said:

*sigh* Yes, Sanders sucked so bad that the Pats kept him around for 6 years and had him start 50 games.

Don't think much before you speak, do you?

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past stats is not a guarantee for the future performance. may be he sucks and that is why they cut him. ever heard of Occam's razor ??

DaBruinz said:

They didn't CUT Page. His contract was up. A better question is why did they cut Sanders if they are actively looking for a "veteran" safety? Sanders knows the system and has been a leader on the field and in the locker-room.

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That certainly is the question I asked myself when I saw this thread.

I only came up with two answers.

1) Money - they feel they can find a replacement of close to equal talent for a lot less. I dont feel like this is the answer as I think we are in OK cap shape and at this point in the season not much outside of replacing injuries you need the money.

2) They already have a plan to upgrade the position whether its a almost fully worked out trade or just a free agent.

I guess I have a third option which is Rappaports premise is just wrong. I think its funny that the last few weeks has been filled with reports of Merriweathers demise and then Sanders gets cut would really seem counter to the media reports of Said demise and intrest in other safeties.

Honestly I think people are missing one big thing as it relates to safeties which is the last few years our safeties have been playing a big role in the nickle defense but from what I saw at camp and in some of TC I think this will be a big role for Bodden. Yes he will start on the outside but when we go nickle he instead of a safety will be kicking inside and thus the need for 3 safeties of starter capabilities is less relevant. If this is the case Sergio is more than adequate back up and your 4th guy would need to be heavy STs guy.

DaBruinz said:

. . .

Don't think much before you speak, do you?

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With a comment like that, I see you've earned the reputation you have on this board.

What they need now is a safety who can cover better than Chung, who has been terrible in coverage so far in his career, and who plays with discipline. I like Brown, but he has a ways to go yet. I think he can be a solid player in a year or two--more physical talent than James Sanders.

As far as options, Renaldo Hill maybe, but I don't know anything about him. Sharper is a possibility, but how much does he have left?

We'll probably have to wait until after the next cutdown for a good veteran safety to become available. Let's just hope there's a fit out there who some team feels is making too much money, or who is getting pushed by a younger guy.

I'm not confident in our current safeties anymore--I think many of our secondary problems can be attributed to them.

I'm not advocating one way or another, but does anyone see any interest in Josh Bullocks? Played in all 18 games last yr for the CHI Bears. Spent 4 yrs with the Saints, and last 2 with Chicago. Was cut today.

Not sure if he's any kind of player that we would look at or not?

I'm not sure if I'm buying into the D.Sharper talk, it seems to me that he'd have been signed already, but maybe he's waiting out his options.

This makes me wonder if they are looking for someone specifically with FS skills or specifically with SS skills. If they find a good FS, they might be trying to slowly replace BMW and move Chung back to SS where he was playing better.

QB12 said:

With a comment like that, I see you've earned the reputation you have on this board.

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Ignore function is your best friend ...

parthasas said:

past stats is not a guarantee for the future performance. may be he sucks and that is why they cut him. ever heard of Occam's razor ??

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First, I love the use of occam's razor ! ( First time I've seen that used on a message board ). But I have to slightly disagree. The razor tells me that Sanders was not a value with a cap number of $2.8 million so he was released.

Not that he "sucks". JMHO.

Wasn't there talk this winter that Adrian Wilson was available from the Cardinals? He's getting on a bit (11th year in the league) but he's a solid, productive safety. He'd make us better instantly, the way Leonard makes the Jets so much better. Send Meriweather to AZ for Wilson and a 5th and I'd be pysched. They'd get a young 2 time Pro Bowl safety and we'd get a killer D. Bingo. And this from a one-time big Meriweather supporter. We've waited too long and maybe he needs a change, might be great for both teams. Besides, Meriweather is a FA after this year and will get $$ that we'd never pay him.

Brady'sButtBoy said:

Wasn't there talk this winter that Adrian Wilson was available from the Cardinals? He's getting on a bit (11th year in the league) but he's a solid, productive safety. He'd make us better instantly, the way Leonard makes the Jets so much better. Send Meriweather to AZ for Wilson and a 5th and I'd be pysched. They'd get a young 2 time Pro Bowl safety and we'd get a killer D. Bingo. And this from a one-time big Meriweather supporter. We've waited too long and maybe he needs a change, might be great for both teams. Besides, Meriweather is a FA after this year and will get $$ that we'd never pay him.

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He is a SS. We need FS's.

JackBauer said:

Why didn't they simply re-sign Jarrad Page?

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No kidding. Iggles got him on a 1 yr deal at $785k all in. It's not like he got big money somewhere else.

Either BB didn't have much use for him or they must really think the world of Sergio Brown.