I have no problem with his comments. He got a little lowballed and the Pats do outwork a lot of teams..they don't have too many "stars" outside Brady and Welker.
Read below: I also never read anything about Ellis being a veteran leader. I do seem to remember he had a few run-ins with the law for his drug issues. The kind of production he had last year, didn't exactly warrant a spot to a 34 year old, over the hill, 11 year vet who's vet minimum was close to a mil. Now if he was 24, I wouldn't mind seeing him here trying to develop his game as a Jet. At 34, he had nothing left to develop and was always going to decline. And it wasn't like Ellis was playing at an all-pro level when we let him go. As someone pointed out, he was a lazy during practices and thats what I have read a few other times in the past as well. The fact that Tanny did offer him vets minimum does indeed show loyalty. And as far as ur "long line of terrible moves" is concerned, I'll u show two SB winning coaches, that are playing in the SB in a few days, who have a much "long(er) line of terrible moves" than Tanny. No one is perfect and Tanny has had a few misses, but you will start to worship Tanny again when he pulls off another good move no one expects him to.
Why? Outside of the Pats playoff win he was pretty worthless last year. IMO we coudl have offered him 2 million and he still would have taken the 4 million from the Pats. His production or lack there of showed we made the right move here.
We used our first two draft picks on the DL for a reason. Still need a pass rusher, too, unless Maybin becomes that guy.
That says it all.....You know this locker room still hasn't been cleaned up since that piece of garbage ( RHODES) has been around. Pretty unsettling to hear things like this because it could affect our ability to sign free agents. Must have pissed Sean off quite a bit to still be talking about the Jets on the eve of the superbowl.
Ellis always seemed to play his best against NE--I always liked him and still do-that said they did the rite thing letting him go. I have zero problem with what he said.
The pats paid him $4 million to do basically nothing all season. Congrats Shaun. The Jets were actually right in this situation. He was a good, not great, Jet here. New England had their fair share of guys that left. Look at Richard Seymour, Mike Vrabel, Ty Law, Lawyer Milloy, etc. The Pats have no loyalty either. If you can't play, you can't play. If you're a backup, you should be paid like a backup.
It is particularly amusing for any member of the Pats not named Brady to say anything about a team showing "loyalty" to a player. As you point out, it's the fact that they never do that that has served them so well over the years. By any reasonable measure the decision to not pay him $4 million was the correct decision.
You focused on the wrong part...what about when Belichek said he was a stable veteran presence in the locker room. Pretty sure we would have liked to pay 3 million for that mid season....spilled milk at this point. I hope he gets his ring, one of the greats for us.
Seymour had nothing to do with loyalty, NE knew they couldn't afford him and Oakland trades 1st rounders like nobody else. Easy move. The rest were pretty similar to Ellis, I'll admit, but they all still consider themselves Patriots instead of Browns, Seahawks, or Chiefs, maybe they just understand that its a business where Ellis doesn't. It also works both ways, too, because you have guys like Brady, Wilfork, Mankins, Bruschi, Light, Mayo, Faulk etc who have or will spend their entire careers as Patriot's. Very few players retire with the team that drafted them. Most of those players will (Mayo is still young, but they did give him a huge extension this season). Welker has already stated he will be back as well. Honestly, "loyalty" in the NFL requires both sides to cooperate. It's easy to say the team wasn't loyal to a player when they let him go with that kind of offer. It's also easy to say a player wasn't loyal to the team when he demands more than he's worth. "Loyalty" only exists when both sides want to be loyal towards each other.
I honestly think if the Jets had offered him $2mil he wouldn't have even entertained offers from other teams. Offering the minimum is basically telling a guy to move on. And those who say BB isn't loyal have a point in some cases. Milloy became a clubhouse "lawyer" (sorry), and they realized with Harrison in the building they didn't need him. The others (Seymore, Branch, Law, Samuels...) wanted top money, and the Pats believe in spending for depth and not giving all the money to a handful of players. BB has been extremely loyal to some players. Troy Brown got $2mil the last couple of years on the team when he was basically just a lockerroom presence, and the word is Kevin Faulk will have a spot as long as he wants, and he really is just a lockerroom presence at this point.
except - as noted above - there is not much to suggest that Ellis was very professional or a good locker room presence
I doubt BB has any regrets signing Ellis with his team getting ready for the SB. We don't know what type of effect Ellis had on the Pats team chemistry but BB claims it was very positive. Why not believe BB on this?
Because BB never tells the truth in his interviews or in general. Is Brady led the league in most games on an injury report before a game because of Bill. We all also know Ellis was not a leader or a stand up guy, so not really sure why he became one. He didn't play much and I didn't see much of an impact. What is Bill supposed to say, "We overpaid on this guy and realized he very little to nothing left?"
