HEADLINES

Aaron Dobson

Patriots To Place Aaron Dobson On IR

December 4th, 2014 at 10:38am CST by Luke Adams

After being nagged by foot issues in the preseason and early on this season, Patriots wide receiver Aaron Dobson has suffered another injury, and this one will end his season. Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald (Twitter link) reports that the Pats will place Dobson on their injured reserve list due to a hamstring injury.

Dobson, 23, was selected 59th overall by the Patriots in the second round of the 2013 draft. However, he hasn’t become a major part of New England’s offense during his two seasons with the team, partly due to injuries. After hauling in 37 receptions during his rookie season, the Marshall product saw just 57 offensive snaps this year, catching three balls for 38 yards.

Removing Dobson from the roster shouldn’t have a real impact on Tom Brady and the Pats’ passing attack, so we’ll have to wait and see if the club decides to replace him with another wide receiver or goes in another direction with the roster spot. I’d expect a corresponding move to be announced when the team officially confirms the transaction involving Dobson.

AFC Notes: Ravens, Dobson, Raiders

October 3rd, 2014 at 3:55pm CST by Zachary Links

New Ravens receiver Steve Smith Sr. is leading the Ravens in receptions and receiving yards and he’s happy to see fellow 35-year-old Reggie Wayne doing the same with the Colts, writes Aaron Wilson of The Baltimore Sun. “Yeah, I love that,” Smith said. “Reggie’s doing his thing, we’re from the same class. I think it’s awesome, man. I think it’s unbelievable and I think also when he went down with the knee injury, he comes back. You know, this is a young man’s game and you’ve got two older guys playing well. That’s great.” More from the AFC..

  • Former judge Barbara S. Jones appears to be an ideal choice to serve as the hearing officer in the appeal of former Ravens running back Ray Rice, writes Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. In fact, Florio writes that she’s so ideal for the assignment that she probably should have been hired to be the independent investigator instead of Robert Mueller whose impartiality has been questioned.
  • The usually guarded Bill Belichick promised comment on the reports that Aaron Dobson mouthed off to offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and he delivered one early this afternoon via the Patriots‘ website. “In my year and a half with Aaron Dobson, he has always been respectful to me and to the rest of the coaching staff. He has never once been argumentative or confrontational. The suggestion and reporting that his playing time was in any way the result of a ‘loud disagreement’ with a coach is completely false,” Belichick said in the statement.
  • Dobson told Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald (Twitter links) that he went to Belichick when he heard about the report and the coach promised to release a statement and “kill the story.”
  • In a perfect world, Raiders owner Mark Davis would be able to bring back Jon Gruden, but that doesn’t appear likely at this juncture. Oakland needs a seasoned, offensive-minded coach (the inverse of Dennis Allen) and Adam Schefter of ESPN.com suggests Darrell Bevell or Pat Shurmur as possible fits. Still, landing Gruden would be the crown achievement.
  • The Ravens are devoting over 30 percent of their salary-cap toward their front seven, writes Aaron Wilson of The Baltimore Sun. Wilson gives the full breakdown of the salary cap by position and notes that they have $6.434MM available in salary cap space.

AFC East Notes: Dobson, Jets, Ryan, Dolphins

October 3rd, 2014 at 10:35am CST by Zachary Links

Second-year wide receiver Aaron Dobson has suited up just once for the Patriots this season and reports indicated that his benching stemmed from a run-in with offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. When asked today if the decision to bench Dobson was football or disciplinary, coach Bill Belichick said it was the former, tweets Albert Breer of the NFL Network. When asked specifically if there was a confrontation between McDaniels and Dobson (link) he said, “No, and I’ll have a comment on that later.” Breer actually believes that the relationship between McDaniels and Dobson has been generally good for the last two years (link), so it’ll be interesting to find out what actually happened in New England. More out of the AFC East..

  • The Jets have the second-largest salary-cap surplus in the league at $24.3MM and the lowest total cash spending at $95.14MM, curious numbers given all their personnel needs this offseason, writes Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. Their lack of spending has left them embarrassingly thin in the secondary, but owner Woody Johnson claims that he doesn’t regret the team’s lowball offer to Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie that led him to the Meadowlands’ other team.
  • Johnson’s frugal approach can work, but only if Jets GM John Idzik delivers, writes Rich Cimini of ESPNNewYork.com. Cimini points out that the slow and steady approach isn’t Johnson’s but rather Idzik’s. After former GM Mike Tannenbaum spent big and didn’t give Johnson a return on his investment, Idzik pitched himself to Johnson as someone who has the opposite philosophy.
  • Rex Ryan could conceivably miss the playoffs for a fourth straight season and still keep his job, writes Seth Walder of the New York Daily News. “We don’t look at it that way,” Johnson said of whether the Jets had to make the postseason in order for the outspoken coach to stay on board.
  • New Dolphins offensive coordinator Bill Lazor was brought to Miami primarily to fix the passing game but, somewhat surprisingly, it’s the rushing attack that has improved, writes ESPN.com’s James Walker. Miami is currently ranked sixth in the NFL in rushing at 142.3 yards per game.

Pats Notes: Amendola, White, Gaston

September 21st, 2014 at 9:20am CST by Rory Parks

After signing a lucrative five-year deal prior to the 2013 season, Danny Amendola has become the “invisible man” in the Patriots’ passing game, writes Ben Volin of the Boston Globe. Through two games in 2014, Amendola has two catches for 16 yards, and he was on the field for just 18 snaps against the Vikings last weekend. As Volin notes, “It’s a continuation from the end of last year, when he had one pass thrown his way in the AFC Championship game, which he dropped.”

Volin writes that there is a disconnect between quarterback Tom Brady and Amendola, and there is plenty of blame to go around. Some of it should be placed on the offensive line, whose shoddy pass-blocking has forced Brady to get rid of the ball on hot reads and bubble screens, and some should be placed on Brady himself (after all, Amendola has gotten himself open at least a few times and Brady has missed him). Nonetheless, there was some talk at the beginning of the offseason that New England would release Amendola, and if things do not improve soon, a release following the 2014 campaign could be inevitable.

Now for some other Patriots items:

  • Amendola is not the only New England wideout yet to establish himself in the team’s aerial attack this year. As Volin writes in the same piece cited above, newly-acquired Brandon LaFell is “frustrated as hell” that he has mostly been reduced to blocking, but Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald writes that more passes will come to LaFell, Aaron Dobson, and Kenbrell Thompkins when the Patriots “expand a game plan that called for a run-first offense and quick throws to offset protection concerns.”
  • Speaking of the run-first offense, Howe writes in the same article that rookie RB James White has been the team’s only healthy scratch for the first two weeks of the season, and despite his impressive training camp, White realizes that he will need to continue to excel in practice to get a shot on game days.
  • Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston.com tweets that the Patriots could look to bring back DL Bruce Gaston, who was waived by the Dolphins yesterday, and place him on the practice squad.
  • In a separate piece, Reiss writes that, since the Logan Mankins trade, Nate Solder has stepped up to fill the off-the-field leadership void. Reiss also wonders if the Buccaneers are regretting the trade, which appeared to be a big win for them at the time it happened but has drawn more scrutiny during the team’s early struggles.

AFC Notes: Steelers, Patriots, Browns

February 16th, 2014 at 9:03am CST by Rory Parks

There has been a great deal of speculation regarding what the Steelers will do with their talented duo of LaMarr Woodley and Jason Worilds, but Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette gives the most definitive prediction to date. He writes that “it is just not conceivable” that the team will be able to retain both players for the 2014 season, and he believes Woodley will be odd-man out. By cutting Woodley now, the Steelers would suffer a $14.17MM cap hit this year, which is not significantly more than the $13.59MM hit they would take if they kept him. Plus, after 2014, he would be off the books entirely, which is a tantalizing prospect for a team that has backed itself into a difficult salary-cap situation.

Of course, as has been noted previously, Pittsburgh could designate Woodley as a post-June 1 release, which would spread out the $14.17MM hit over the 2014 and 2015 seasons and give the team an extra $8MM to spend this year. However, that $8MM would not become available until after June 1, which would limit what the Steelers could do in free agency (either with their own free agents or with those from other clubs). Whichever route the team takes, Bouchette believes Woodley has played his last game as a Steeler.

Other notes from the AFC:

  • Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette believes the Steelers will not re-sign Emmanuel Sanders, and Christopher Price of WEEI.com thinks the Patriots would take another shot at Sanders if he is, in fact, still available when free agency begins in March. New England, of course, signed Sanders to an offer sheet last offseason when he was a restricted free agent, prompting Pittsburgh to match the offer to retain the speedy wideout. If New England were to re-sign Julian Edelman, then the Patriots would likely not pursue Sanders, as the two players offer similar skill-sets. But if Edelman finds greener pastures elsewhere, Sanders may become a top free-agent priority for New England.
  • Meanwhile, Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald thinks that, now the Larry Fitzgerald-to-New England dream is dead, the Patriots will not look outside its own roster to find the big-play outside receiver the team covets. The answer, she writes, could be second-year man Aaron Dobson, who has all the physical tools and who looked better and better as the 2013 season progressed.
  • In a recent Q & A with Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com, new Browns GM Ray Farmer indicates that he has a favorite quarterback in this year’s draft class, but that quarterback may not be Johnny Manziel. In fact, Farmer said the QB he likes “may not be the name that everybody thinks is the latest, greatest, and the easy one to spot,” and he suggested that Cleveland’s No. 4 overall pick may be too high for this unnamed player. Farmer is already adept at “GM-speak,” as the rest of his answers consisted primarily of the vague generalities one would expect from a high-ranking executive at this time of the year, but his musings about his favorite QB are nonetheless intriguing.