League sources have confirmed the Patriots have informed veteran receiver Mohamed Sanu that he will be released.
In these circumstances, it's still possible for a trade to happen. A team interested in claiming Sanu could send a late draft pick to the Patriots to assure themselves of getting the player over a team higher in the claiming in process. But considering the film he put out last year with the Patriots due to a high-ankle sprain, and his $6.5-million salary, the odds of Sanu being released, which was first reported by NFL.com, are high.
Why would the Patriots do this? What does it mean? How bad of an error was this by Bill Belichick?
First of all, the reasons why:
- Well, we mentioned it the first week of camp: "I keep having a sneaking feeling that Mohamed Sanu might not make the final roster — at times he doesn’t look completely healthy to me — and he really hasn’t made much of an impact to this point (neither has N’Keal Harry). Trading a second-round pick could hang over this, but the Patriots might want that cap space and could take a lower pick back in return just to do that. I might want to keep Gunner Olszewski, Jakobi Meyers and/or Devin Ross over Sanu if this continues."
- He was set to make $6.5 million this season. How much more are you really getting for $6 million that you couldn't get from Jakobi Meyers or Devin Ross?
- Sanu was an average receiver in Atlanta, and he was an average receiver here. Some of it isn't fair because he got hurt returning a punt and was never the same, but he had never been a 1,000-yard receiver in his career and he probably wasn't going to be one here without any standout skill other than being big.
- Wasn't a huge fan of the move for those reasons at the time. I would have rather had Emmanuel Sanders as a one-year rental than Sanu at two years. Sanders helped the 49ers go to a Super Bowl. Sanu helped the Patriots lose wild-card weekend for the first time since 2009.
- "Let’s call a spade a spade: this is an overpay for an average receiver with a comparatively high salary ($6-million base). If the Patriots got a cap break (via the Falcons paying him a bonus), I could understand it better. They are not getting much of a comp pick in 2022 if he signs elsewhere in 2021. He’ll be 32."
- In practice this year, Sanu started to come on at the end of camp but for the first 10 years he never got the ball and had a hard time getting open. It was hard to discern exactly what he was going to bring to the offense that someone much younger and cheaper could.
What does it mean?
- This isn't a normal season, so I don't think the money will be used for anything besides maybe more money for Cam Newton and/or a possible extension for a James White, Joe Thuney or David Andrews.
- With the likely cap crunch in the NFL next season, every dollar you can roll over to next year is going to be worth its weight in gold. The Patriots now have about $37 million in cap space and I'm sure they'd love to roll over as much as they can of that.
- Getting rid of Sanu clears a spot for Jakobi Meyers, Jeff Thomas and/or Devin Ross. Cheaper, faster with more upside.
End of an error(s)
- Not sure you could have had a worse year acquiring receivers than the Patriots did last year. First, they signed Antonio Brown and it looked like they just kissed off $9.5 million (before a settlement got half of that back). Then, they traded a second-round pick to the Falcons and spent another $3 million.
- So in 2019 .... between Antonio Brown and Mohamed Sanu, the Patriots sunk $8 million and a 2nd-round pick for 9 games, 30 catches, 263 yards, 2 TDs and a first-round exit while scoring 13 points. Yikes.
- Oh yeah, and then Tom Brady was ticked off all year, hated his weapons and left in the offseason.
- Then, the Patriots went through the whole offseason with Sanu on the roster and his $6.5 million clogging up the cap, and they didn't make any moves to help the offense with that money.
- So it was really a two-year error.
- So, yeah, the Brown/Sanu deals last year will go down as some of the worst in Belichick's history.