Patriots Bring Back TE Garrett Mills
by Richard Hill on Aug 22, 2011 1:18 AM EDT
in New England Patriots News
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The Patriots are bringing back a semi-familiar face. In the 2006 NFL Draft, the Patriots took tight end Garrett Mills in the 4th round. Mills had set the NCAAF receiving record for tight ends as a senior with 1235 yards. After spending his rookie season on the IR, the Patriots tried to sneak Mills onto their practice squad, but the Minnesota Vikings poached him before he could make it. Mills has since spent time with the Vikings, Eagles, and the Bengals, notching 9 receptions for 110 yards.
Mills is a player of similar style to Aaron Hernandez as he is more of a receiver than a traditional tight end. Standing at 6-1, 235 lbs, Mills is a heavy receiver, yet he still ran a quick-enough 4.64s 40 yard dash at the combine. The Patriots aren't starved for tight ends on the roster with Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez as locks, and with draftee Lee Smith and undrafted free agent Will Yeatman fighting for spots.
While Smith and Yeatman are blocking tight ends in the mold of Gronkowski, Mills looks to be more of a Hernandez. Look for Mills to play with the second and third offenses as Belichick will want to test certain plays later in preseason games without risking Hernandez's health.
Mills showed a lot of promise coming out of college and was known for his phenomenal receiving ability and his surprisingly-good blocking. While he has a slim chance of making the roster, look for Mills to help out the team for the rest of the preseason.
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In other news, the Patriots have parted ways with safety Bret Lockett and tackle/guard Zach Roth. Lockett was removed from the game against Tampa due to a groin injury and Roth was injured during his first practice. Both were long shots to make the roster, so look for the Patriots to pick up some additional camp bodies. Lockett was apparently waived with an "injured" designation, which means he has a chance of making to the Patriots' IR.
I don't believe that any of these three moves will have a lasting impact on the final roster. Just look for Mills to allow the 2nd and 3rd string offenses to run the same plays the first team offense would run with Hernandez.
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Isn't he the guy...
… that Brad Childress outwitted us to get?
Oh, no. Wait. That would imply that Brad Childress was capable of outwitting anyone or anything. My mistake.
"Laser show. So relax."
The first rule of Lookout Landing is you don't talk about Lookout Landing.
by nuthinboutnuthin on Aug 22, 2011 3:15 AM EDT reply actions
Childress should have let the bear continue to sleep,
Rather than focusing its aggression on him. Ultimately, Belichick had his revenge.
"Perhaps it was the Noid who should have avoided me." Mayor Adam West
Traded Randy Moss
for a 3rd rd pick and his job
Trevor Bauer: 5 Starts, 1-1, 2.84 ERA, 19 IP, 33K in the minors
Tom Brady: 11-19, 118 Yds, 2 TD in 1 preseason Game
by freeland1787 on Aug 22, 2011 9:44 AM EDT up reply actions
Childress is witless
He was so hopped up on ‘outsmarting’ Belichick, but he lost his own player the same way right afterward to the Patriots.
Keep the faith!
If Chilly outwitted Belichick, he'd have to use his last wit to do it. That would make him witless.
Wait, that sounds about right.
The more you know, the more you know that you don't know.
Some people can learn from the mistakes of others, while some people need to pee on the electric fence themselves.
My life has been a trivial pursuit. Trivia: where three roads meet.
by SlotMachinePlayer on Aug 22, 2011 6:21 PM EDT up reply actions
Being at the bottom of an NFL roster is a tough business
Teams bring you in for camp with almost no chance of making the roster, use you up until you get hurt, then dump you. Feel bad for these guys who are left to recover as free agents.
A hard way to make a living
Bret Lockett was lost to injury in 2010, but the Patriots brought him back this year only to lose him again. He was part of the Mayo group that worked out in the offseason, and I watched him running sprints and playing on the turf field at the high school with the others. A lot of work for an uncertain future but I respect that dedication.
Keep the faith!
Quoted from above:
“Look for Mills to play with the second and third offenses as Belichick will want to test certain plays later in preseason games without risking Hernandez’s health.”
Receiver health is becoming critical due to the hits the safeties are laying on these defenseless receivers. Look at hit the Denver safety put on the Bill’s receiver – and that was along the sidelines.
Look at the PATS situation:
Game 1, Price gets blasted
Game 2, Ocho gets blasted.
If teams hope to keep their WR’s throughout the season, I truly believe that routes need to become curls, hooks, come-backs, in the seams, when going into the middle of the field.
Here’s a perfect example. Scroll across the bottom until you get to the Cardinals/Packers clip. Fitzgerald does a clinical curl. He drives the safety and others deep, and he pulls up fast. Perfectly run route. Nicely thrown ball (a little low), and a safer reception.
Fitzgerald running a perfect curl won't stop James Harrison from lighting him up after he's caught it.
And there is no more dangerous throw than one down the seam vs Cover-2, since both safeties can get there and crush a receiver.
BOTH HITS WERE RECKLESS FROM THE DEFENDER INVOLVED, NOT BECUSE THE ROUTE WAS UNSAFE.
Maybe Hernandez had a tight hamstring after tha last game, and there’s no point risking a tear for week 3 of the preseason. MAYBE RICH IS GUESSING AS TO WHY HE WAS BROUGHT IN, SINCE HE’S NOT BELICHICK.
"Perhaps it was the Noid who should have avoided me." Mayor Adam West
I agree. The hit is coming no matter what route you run in the middle of the field. However, the worse case scenario is the hit when the receiver is crossing at near full speed (like the Price and Ocho hits). The impact is far more significant. The WR is typically extended and completely defenseless. The risk is huge! This injury concern goes well beyond football. But, minimizing the concern to just football, the PATS could easily be without Price and Ocho for weeks, or longer, after just two pre-season games. Those were coin tosses.
Injuries and big hits happen. The Woody hit on the punt coverage is one such example. It’s the NFL. That’s ST. It’s football. However, designing WR plays that create a high possibility of this type of hit, in my view, is absurd. I disagree that those plays are unsafe in their design. There is no denying that these safeties can line up any WR coming across the middle. That’s their specialty, their skill. Sending a WR across the middle at speed is clearly placing that WR in danger of being hammered.
Yes, I agree, those hits were wreckless and purposeful.
It seems that the monetary fines are NOT creating enough of a deterrent. Perhaps the player fine needs to be much bigger, an additional fine needs to be levied on the head coach, and the defender receives an automatic 4 game suspension: or he is suspended until the receiver returns to action if the hit results in an injury to the receiver that extends beyond four games.
I'm not going to limit the routes I run just to limit injuries.
Bottom line is regardless of whatever new rules they’ve made or are going to make football is a violent contact sport and people get hurt. You need to constantly mix up anything and everything and keep the defense guessing to win.
There is no way in hell I’m running curls 100% of the time just to limit injuries.
by UtopianAverage on Aug 22, 2011 9:15 AM EDT up reply actions 4 recs
Lol so you're saying you think we should actually play football?
Wouldn’t it just be nice if we promised not to go over the middle and they promised not to tackle us too hard?
Deep in enemy territory
by JeffyB on Aug 22, 2011 9:40 AM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
There is no way in hell I’m running curls 100% of the time just to limit injuries.
You are not limited to curls. You can run posts, flags, and GO patterns. I’m recommending that the PATS discontinue crossing patterns and opt for curls instead of those suicide routes. It’s the angle that dictates the severity of the contact. Additionally, the TE’s underneath are far safer targets in that they are flat out bigger than the safety. It’s rare to see a safety hit the TE in that fashion. He can’t risk his own body. The LB’s (a LB hit Ocho) are chasing the TE so they, too, cannot line up that type of a hit.
The Buffalo WR was running a GO pattern down the sidelines. He still got hammered by the safety. That’s the reality of the game. It is violent. We all agree. However, a WR has a better chance of surviving that hit than the hit Price and Ocho received.
I get what you're recommending.
I’m just not sold. I don’t believe in sacrificing anything out of the playbook. I don’t believe in playing the game trying not to get hurt, you play to win. You use whatever you can, whenever you can, with whoever you can, and live with what happens.
by UtopianAverage on Aug 22, 2011 5:00 PM EDT up reply actions
You can't suspend players for the length of time their victim is out.
There’s a problem with the rule. Ban the helmet as a weapon, and give the referees discretion as to what constitutes a player leading with his helmet.
They do need to turn to suspensions, especially for repeat offenders.
"Perhaps it was the Noid who should have avoided me." Mayor Adam West
It seems that they have gone to great extremes to protect the QB’s in recent years. I assume that has to do with their “entertainment value” as much as their personal safety. We do like to watch Brady, Manning, Brees, etc. at QB.
Since the WR is the other half of the aerial entertainment package, it would only seem natural that the league needs to step up their efforts to protect that contingency – as well as for their personal safety.
Suspensions would certainly be an excellent starting point. You can be sure that top NFL safeties are too important to risk losing them for upcoming games.
They did.
Defenseless receiver. H2H hits, and all that.
They’re only penalising part of the problem, rather than the whole shebang. Treating the symptoms, rather than the disease.
"Perhaps it was the Noid who should have avoided me." Mayor Adam West
Are they actually suspending players?
I was under the impression, based on Ocho’s Tweet to the Tampa LB, that a fine was the only penalty he may face.
I am with you. They’re not addressing the bigger problem. Whatever rules are in place are clearly not working as a deterrent. I worry about these WR’s. I just feel that they’re too exposed and too much at risk for a very serious injury.
Yep.
And my guess is that they don’t want their starters to get hit late in preseason games.
by Richard Hill on Aug 22, 2011 8:14 PM EDT up reply actions
There's a chance he sticks though.
He might make Sammy Morris obsolete.
"Perhaps it was the Noid who should have avoided me." Mayor Adam West
Bedard indicated the team was unhappy with its run blocking
Yeatman and Smith have been from inconsistent to bad so far this preseason, and Sammy Morris apparently isn’t impressing either. I haven’t watched any of them closely so I’ll take his word for it. Mills is a TE/FB guy kind of like Hernandez but not- he isn’t the same kind of receiving mismatch so I think it’s possible the team brought him on to see if he couldn’t find his own, separate niche in the offense.
Deep in enemy territory
If that's the case
Bring back Crump. Guy was class last year.
Except for the dropped TD and that his arm all but fell off over the summer.
"Perhaps it was the Noid who should have avoided me." Mayor Adam West
I think the reason he dropped the TD
was his arm fell off
Trevor Bauer: 5 Starts, 1-1, 2.84 ERA, 19 IP, 33K in the minors
Tom Brady: 11-19, 118 Yds, 2 TD in 1 preseason Game
by freeland1787 on Aug 22, 2011 9:47 AM EDT up reply actions
Isn't he still rehabbing from offseason surgery?
I thought that was the reason he was cut. I forget what the reports were.
Deep in enemy territory
Crumpler was cut
becuz of his cap hit more than injury
Trevor Bauer: 5 Starts, 1-1, 2.84 ERA, 19 IP, 33K in the minors
Tom Brady: 11-19, 118 Yds, 2 TD in 1 preseason Game
by freeland1787 on Aug 22, 2011 9:48 AM EDT up reply actions
I saw something on nfl.com
that said T Mark LeVoir beinging signed by Baltimore
Trevor Bauer: 5 Starts, 1-1, 2.84 ERA, 19 IP, 33K in the minors
Tom Brady: 11-19, 118 Yds, 2 TD in 1 preseason Game
Right
They signed LeVoir a couple days ago along with a former Titans, Seahawks, and Chargers practice squad center Jason Murphy
by indy pats fan on Aug 22, 2011 10:42 AM EDT up reply actions
Am i the only one a tad bit worried about Plaxico's play lastnight?
He looked really good all things considered. Now i know it was against the Bungles, but still. Dowling may get IR’d cause really how much can he contribute to the team having missed just about every practice? Even if he was there by week 1 or 2, he may be so confused it could hinder the secondary rather than be an asset. And Plax is a huge target. It would’ve been nice to have Dowling their. And Vereen might as well be IR’d for the same reason. No time on field, means he’ll be a hindrance rather than a benefit. Sucks that its possible 3 of our 2011 draftees may be IR’d. That draft may not be looking as good as some of us may have believed.
Lewis Hamilton~ 2011 F1 Champion!!!
Life is about who makes it, not who makes it the fastest! Drive slow homie.
Yes, you are the only one concerned about Burress.
Primarily because it was the Bengals.
"Perhaps it was the Noid who should have avoided me." Mayor Adam West
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