Report: The Patriots just missed out on TE Jared Cook, too

Before we begin talking tight ends, brothers and sisters, let us all pour one out for the “Dwayne Allen’s blocking” jokes that will not be made by Patriots Nation this season. Till Valhalla, Dwayne Allen blocking jokes.

OK, now that that’s out of the way, hopefully you didn’t wake up with a headache from too much March Madness this morning cause if you did and you were already worried about the state of the Patriots pass-catchers, this isn’t going to make it any better. Free agent tight end Jared Cook, who a lot of us (the Pulpit included) had pegged as a (insert football cliche) MATCHUP NIGHTMARE sidekick for Rob Gronkowski obviously signed with the Saints last week, but just like Adam Humphries, when it came down to giving out roses, the Patriots came up empty both times.

TL;DR - two of guys that you would’ve signed if you were building this team in Madden were both heavy targets of New England. Interesting.

From ESPN:

Similar to how the Patriots made an aggressive pitch to receiver Adam Humphries in free agency and didn’t close the deal, a source close to tight end Jared Cook said the Patriots aggressively courted him before Cook elected to sign with the Saints late last week. Rob Gronkowski’s uncertain status seems to have played a significant part in Cook’s thinking, as there is clearer path to a top role on the tight-end depth chart in New Orleans.

Hard to blame Cook for that. Much easier to sign up with a team where A) you basically know you’re going to be the dude, and B) everyone knows it should’ve been Saints-Patriots in the Super Bowl anyway.

Also, have you HAD the food in New Orleans? DEEE-LISH. Bad for the waistline, though.

Joking aside, the tight end position in free agency right now is basically at the point like at a house party when you notice the keg start floating; per NFL.com, the only 2 notable free agents at this point are Jermaine Gresham and ex-Jet Austin Sefarian-Jenkins, and while they could both most likely be decent additions in New England, they’d probably have to join on a pretty meat-and-potatoes deal and, like we said above, be cool taking a backseat to Gronk most of the time.

So let the speculation that the Pats address tight end in the draft COMMENCE!

Oh wait, it already has? Well, read our man Ryan Kieran’s breakdown and carry on then.