With only two days left until 2012 training camp starts for veterans on Thursday, New England signed veteran Visanthe Shiancoe to a one-year deal.
A third-round pick of the Giants in 2003 out of Morgan State, Shiancoe made his name in Minnesota (five seasons) after four forgettable years in New York. Looking at his career stats, the first thing that pops out is that he's never missed a game in nine years in the NFL. That's incredible since tight end is a pretty physical position so he's obviously a tough guy.
The Vikings have been a mess the last two seasons but he's still managed to put up decent numbers basically without an NFL-caliber quarterback throwing to him-sorry Joe Webb, Christian Ponder, etc. Shiancoe has 36+ catches in the last four seasons and at least 409 receiving yards every year in that span. His best season was 2009 when Minnesota made it to the NFC Championship Game before Brett Favre did his usual chokejob. Shiancoe had a career-high 56 catches, 566 receiving yards and a career-high 11 touchdowns.
For his career, he's caught 243 passes for 2677 yards (11.0 yards per catch) and 27 touchdowns with a career-long reception of 79 yards.
With fellow newcomer Daniel Fells starting camp on the PUP list (physically unable to perform), Visanthe is already positioned as New England's third tight end. Given that Rob Gronkowski is coming off ankle surgery and Aaron Hernandez has missed games in both seasons in the NFL, Shiancoe is cheap and potentially a valuable insurance policy should one of the two main guys get hurt again at any point this season.
UPDATE 7/25: The Pats released running back Joseph Addai (damn, he must be washed up to be cut before training camp even started) and signed local guy Tim Bulman. The defensive lineman went to Boston College and BC High and he's from Milton, Mass. He played the last four seasons with the Houston Texans.
Tweet
Follow @RichSlate
No comments:
Post a Comment