Patten released

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Beemnseven

I still wonder if we could have gotten by with Patten last year rather than having to spend a 3rd and a 4th for Lloyd.

The funny thing was that James Thrash did way better than either of them in far fewer oppertunities.

You can't make the Lloyd deal look good no matter how you spin it. We overvalued him three times last year. First, we sent picks for a receiver whose identical quality can be found on the waiver wire at any point. Second, we gave Lloyd a big money deal even though we had him under a test contract. Third, we gave him playing time that Randle El and Thrash deserved early last season.

Patten was an apparently good signing when we made it happen in that he had No. 1 receiver potential based on his prior stats in NE. But for whatever reason, he was horrible here in the first half of 2005, and injured in the second. Obviously, he didn't see a lot of passes with Moss having the year he was, but he saw fewer passes the few prior years in NE and did way better. It was just the classic case of a skill position player hitting the wall, and unfortunately for us, it happened the year we signed him. It sucks, but hey, what can you do?

Lloyd was a 4th round pick who hasn't done crap to prove that he deserved to go any higher. Yet, due to some gross talent evaluation by Al Saunders [who probably shouldn't be evaluating talent, at least let Gibbs do it], he's getting paid bazillions, while Freddie Mitchell rots in receiver hell some where (I know FredEx has character issues and would not be a good fit here, but I'm trying to find a crappy comparision for Lloyd that can be found on the waiver wire).

But teams that have No. 1 targets like Moss, and in our case, a compliment that is Cooley, should probably refrain from investing in more receivers. It becomes impossible to keep them all happy.

Patten was never going to get another chance here. He was more than expendable.

Good signing to get him here, but his time was up.