Just when you started to give up hope that Patriots head coach/GM Bill Belichick would ever change in any way, he starts going wild the first few days of free agency in the NFL. Of course, Cam Newton is still his quarterback which is a fatal flaw but at least he's making the team much better around him as he signed another top tight end-Hunter Henry-to a three-year deal worth $37.5 million with $25 million guaranteed. In the span of a few days, New England went from having the worst tight ends in the entire league (sorry Devin Asiasi and Dalton Keene but the truth hurts) to one of the best with the addition of Jonnu Smith on Monday and Henry on Tuesday.
As we found out last season when the Patriots were playing the Chargers, Belichick had reportedly been following Henry's career since he was in high school which isn't weird at all. A native of Arkansas, Henry was a second-round draft pick (35th overall) in 2016 for the Chargers out of the University of Arkansas. He's been in the NFL for five seasons now (he missed all of 2018 with a torn ACL) and two things stand out: he's never played in all 16 games of a regular season but on the bright side, his catches have gone up each year that he's been on the field.
In 2020 with LA's sensational rookie quarterback Justin Herbert, Henry had 60 catches on a career-high 93 targets for 613 yards and four touchdowns. His career-high in yards is 652 in 2019 and his most touchdowns (8) came in his rookie campaign. At 6-foot-5 and 250 pounds, he gives the Patriots a great red zone target plus a key weapon on third down and in short yardage situations for Newton or whoever else is their quarterback in 2021 and beyond. I haven't seen every Chargers game beyond highlights on NFL Red Zone and playing fantasy football helps fill in some of the picture but I'm pretty sure that he's not the most physical tight end when it comes to blocking, meaning he's more Travis Kelce than Rob Gronkowski in that regard but that's fine.
New England desperately needed an infusion of talent all over its thin roster and while Henry's injury history is a little troubling, the fact that they already have Smith is reassuring so at least all the pressure isn't on Hunter. Newton struggled so much passing the football last season but having two upper-level NFL quality tight ends should help him immensely rather than a pair of third-round rookies that can't seem to do anything right. Henry has only played in one career NFL playoff game so he'll no doubt be extra motivated to help the Pats return to the postseason and their former winning ways albeit without Tom Brady aka the greatest quarterback of all-time.
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