Arian Foster, Kurt Warner, Antonio Gates, Tony Romo, James Harrison, Priest Holmes, London Fletcher. These are just some of the players that were not wanted by any team during the seven-round NFL Draft. Some call them cast offs, but we call them undrafted free agents in the NFL.
After the draft has been completed, teams from around the league have the opportunity to fill their roster with hundreds of college players that don't get drafted. Most of these players either spend the majority of their careers on the bench, practice squad, or waiting for another call. Others, like the players listed above, become NFL stars.
For the Patriots, they have a knack for producing undrafted free agent into stars in New England. They helped mold the likes of Wes Welker, Adam Vinatieri and most recently, BenJarvus Green-Ellis into the players that they are today.
The Pats have been able to sign the likes of Brandon Lloyd, Joseph Addai and Jabar Gaffney during regular free agency, the best players in this year's total free agent class for the team may come from their group of UDFAs. To this point, that list of players goes as follows:
- Jeremiah Warren, OG South Florida (Greg Knopping's Analysis)
- Markus Zusevics, OT Iowa (Greg Knopping's Analysis)
- Marcus Forston, DT Miami (FL) (Jared Stegall's Analysis)
- Brad Herman, TE Iowa (Greg Knopping's Analysis)
- Matt Roark, WR Kentucky (Richard Hill's Analysis)
- Justin Francis, DE Rutgers (Jared Stegall's Analysis)
- Brandon Bolden, RB Ole Miss (Jared Stegall's Analysis)
The question that I ask you, Pats Pulpit community, is which of these players has the best chance of making the 53-man roster? Or, who are you pulling for?
With the Patriots clear need in this draft being the pass rush, they hardly addressed offensive players in the draft. Matt Light's retirement opens the door for one the two lineman to make it. But when it's all said and done, I think the player who has the best chance of making it is Brandon Bolden (if you couldn't tell in my gushing over him yesterday). What say you?