The 2011 NFL regular season officially kicks off tomorrow night as the New Orleans Saints visit the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field, a truly delicious opener.
There's a full slate of games on Sunday and our own New England Patriots travel to Miami on Monday night in the first part of a Monday Night Football doubleheader (Broncos-Raiders in the dog's breakfast second game).
With that in mind, the clock is running out for the Pats to make roster moves before Monday but they're still putting in full days and nights at Gillette Stadium in anticipation of what should be a great season.
Yesterday, New England released cornerback Darius Butler and signed linebacker A.J. Edds, who was waived by the Dolphins in the preseason.
Today, the Pats released defensive lineman Gerard Warren and made official something that everybody knew this weekend thanks to Twitter and the Gronkowski brothers' love of the social media tool: tight end Dan Gronkowski joins brother Rob as New England signed the former Bronco.
Seeing Butler leave was not a surprise at all and Ryan will have more thoughts on that in a subsequent post. Like Brandon Meriweather before him, his time with Bill Belichick had run out. Drafted only two years ago out of UConn, Butler has plenty of physical talent (who doesn't in the NFL?) but he regressed last season when the team needed him to step up.
This season with Devin McCourty, Leigh Bodden, Kyle Arrington ahead of him, not to mention Antwaun Molden and rookie Ras-I Dowling waiting in the wings, Butler would have never seen the field. The Carolina Panthers picked him up and he could flourish there for a team that has nowhere to go but up.
Bringing in Dan Gronkowski, drafted by the Lions and traded to Denver last September, fills a glaring hole for the Patriots who were only carrying two tight ends (Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez). Dan, who went to the University of Maryland, is known more as a blocking tight end so basically he'll be a younger, cheaper, white Alge Crumpler (without the resume). Plus, the comic possibilities with him and his brotastic brother will be endless. The clubs and bars in New England have been put on notice.
Seeing Warren leave doesn't come as a shock either since the defensive line is one of New England's deepest positions. He is one of Belichick's favorites though so he could be a guy that comes back during the season when somebody gets hurt. You can never have enough big fatsos that know the playbook and can come in with little to no adjustment period.
Finally, Edds is an unknown commodity. He was drafted in the fourth-round in 2010 out of Iowa (teammates with Patriots rookie linebacker Jeff Tarpinian) by Miami but missed all of last season after tearing his ACL in training camp.
For what it's worth, he led the Dolphins with 18 tackles and a sack this preseason. He gives New England more linebacker depth (one of their shakiest positions) and who knows, since Belichick's boy Kirk Ferentz coaches Iowa, maybe he gave him a hot tip on his former player. Edds can play outside and inside linebacker while also being a long snapper. I can guarantee that he'll be all over special teams on Monday (if he suits up) so you can impress your friends by reading this post and dropping a little knowledge about New England's newest anonymous player.
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