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Practice squad moves

The Patriots today re-signed tight end Jason Rader to their practice squad; to make room for Rader on the eight-man unit, the team released quarterback David Greene.

New England has only two tights ends on its 53-man roster, Benjamin Watson and Kyle Brady.

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Patriots re-sign tight end Jason Rader

---The Patriots today re-signed tight end Jason Rader. To make room for him on the roster, New England released quarterback David Greene from the practice squad.

New England only had two tight ends on its roster -- Benjamin Watson and Kyle Brady. Rader adds depth to the position.

From the press release:

Rader, 26, was previously signed to the Patriots practice squad on Sept. 3, 2007. He was placed on the practice squad reserve/injured list on Sept. 25 and was released from the practice squad reserve/injured list on Sept. 30.

The 6-foot-4-inch, 260-pound tight end has played in five career NFL games -- all with the Miami Dolphins in 2006. Rader was originally signed by the Atlanta Falcons as an undrafted free agent out of Marshall in 2004. He was waived by Atlanta prior to the 2004 regular season and was signed by the Dolphins on June 13, 2005.

Rader spent eight weeks of the 2005 season on Miami’s practice squad. Last season, Rader split time between Miami’s active roster and practice squad and appeared in five games. He played for the Rhein Fire of the NFL Europe League in the spring of 2005.

Posted by Rob Lee  at 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Are the Pats running up the score?

With their 56-10 blowout victory over the Bill Sunday night, the debate over the Patriots running up the score has been renewed.

Cornerback Randall Gay said on ESPN Radio’s “GameNight” program that the Patriots are just doing their job and the Patriots shouldn’t be criticized for it.

"Basically, you have to ignore those people because this is a job. We're out there, and what are we supposed to do? Like we scored on defense, when Ellis [Hobbs] caught the fumble, should he have taken a knee because we were up by so much? We're out there to do our job, just like they're out there to do their job. It kind of makes me mad when you hear somebody from the other team's defense going 'they shouldn't have done thatl; that's disrespect.' Do we think it's disrespect when they went and picked up their checks for letting a team score 50 points on them? That should be disrespect, that you went to your owner and said 'All right, pay me for that game I just played.' You can't look at it like that. You have to go out there and do your best. If somebody is blowing you out, you have to play harder. You have to stop them."

Patriots defensive lineman Jarvis Green said on NFL live that he disagreed with Gay’s assessment that the Bills should be embarrassed for picking up their paycheck.

“No, I don’t agree,” Green said when asked if he agreed with Gay’s statement. “The Bills have more football to play. They’re 5-5. They can go out there and turn their season around also to finish up 11-5. What he said was his opinion. They’re competitors. They have been playing us well. We can go back to the year that they beat us 31-0 so it just wasn’t their day, Sunday.”

The Patriots have beaten Buffalo nine times in a row and 14 times in their last 15 tries.

Posted by Rob Lee  at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments 1

Madden & Tiki talk Pats

Hey all --

Earlier today, NBC had a conference call with members of its Sunday Night Football crew in advance of this week's New England-Philadelphia game, and as you'd expect, analysts John Madden and Tiki Barber had plenty of things to say about the Patriots.

Following are some quotes from that call on the Pats' dominance:

TIKI ON THE PATS DOMINANCE: "The New England Patriots are showing to be the greatest team that we've seen in a long time. Whether you are rooting for or against them having an undefeated season all the way to the Super Bowl, it is certainly entertaining and exciting to think about them going 19-0 and doing it in the dominating fashion they have been doing it."

MADDEN ON THE PATS DOMINANCE: "I think that New England, especially offensively, is as close to perfect as you can be. I think that they're obviously the best team in the NFL and I think the gap is pretty big."

MADDEN ON WHO IS THE NFL'S SECOND BEST TEAM: "For a long time everyone agreed that it was the Indianapolis Colts. Because of injuries and that they have now, it's probably not. You would probably have to go to Dallas and Green Bay."

MADDEN ON IF BELICHICK SHOULD REST GUYS ONCE PATS CLINCH: "That's going to be the dilemma. Do you go for a championship or do you go for a record? At some point he's going to have to make that decision. Knowing Bill Belichick, I know that championships are going to be more important than records. It's just very, very difficult to see, if you get to that point, where you have everything clinched and in essence it's a meaningless game, to have Tom Brady and Randy Moss and that group out there the whole game."

MADDEN ON PATS PLACE IN HISTORY: "It's the best offense that I've ever seen. Tom Brady is playing the position of quarterback, right now, better than anyone I've ever seen play it. So where are they as the best team, I think offensively, they are right there. The best offensive team that won was the San Francisco 49ers. In my mind, this team, the way they're playing right now, is probably better. I would say that this is the best offensive team that I've ever seen. Again, I'm putting the whole thing together with the offensive line, the receivers, the quarterback, everything. When you go to team, you have to put in defense. Their defense isn't the Pittsburgh Steelers defense; it's not the '85 Bears defense. Historically, when you put everything together, I'm not sure that they're the best team ever. I am sure, in my mind and just my observation, they are the best offensive team that I've ever seen."

MADDEN ON IF THE PATRIOTS ARE HATED AS MUCH AS RAIDERS: "When we played on the road and you knew you were going to get booed, I used to tell my people, 'I don't know if they're going to cheer you or they're going to boo you when you run out onto that field, but I'll tell you this, if they boo you, they respect you and they're afraid of you. If they cheer you, they don't respect you and they're not afraid of you.' I knew they were going to get booed. So when the boos would come I would say, 'Told you, they are scared to death of you.' So you would take that thing and just turn it and make a positive thing out of it, because we led the league in boos. I don't know that they [the Patriots] are hated like that. You can go back to the 'Spygate' thing but when you think of the players, I would think that this team is probably half loved and half hated. I think there's a lot of respect. When you see what Tom Brady is doing, what Randy Moss is doing, Wes Welker, the offensive line, Teddy Brushci, Junior Seau on defense, Richard Seymour, I don't know that people are really against those guys. I had some guys where fans really booed. I mean, they booed the guys. This is the kind of thing where, if they are against them, they're against the organization rather than the players."

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Projo PatsTalk, in audio and pictures

Here it is at last, this week's edition of projo PatsTalk with Shalise Manza Young. This week, we premiere our new look: PatsTalk in audio and pictures.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 2:22 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Download today's sports cover

It was a busy day in sports, and there's lots of action on today's sports cover. Shalise Manza Young describes how Bill Belichick continues to drive his Patriots to greatness; Sean McAdam examines the Red Sox' deal with Mike Lowell; and Mike Szostak reports on the firing of URI football coach Tim Stowers.

Download a copy of the page in PDF format

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments 0