AFC East Rumors: Roman, Dolphins, Patriots

Greg Roman‘s early-season dismissal has generated consistent fallout since the Bills and their OC parted ways on Friday. The latest comes from Bills sources who are glad the firing occurred.

“I haven’t talked to anybody that isn’t excited about the move,” a Bills source told Tom Pelissero of USA Today.

According to the sources, Bills players believed their offense lacked an identity, even as the team raced to the top of the NFL in rushing in 2015. They saw an offense that would change randomly from week to week instead of building on what was working, per Pelissero, leaving the team prone to three-and-outs when big plays didn’t occur.

Here’s the latest from the AFC East.

• The Dolphins did not appear to like DeVante Parker‘s approach to healing a troublesome hamstring this offseason, Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald writes. The second-year wideout’s nutritional habits were less than ideal, per Salguero, who adds the projected starter perhaps wasn’t doing enough in practice to prepare his muscles for game speed. Parker missed Week 1 with a hamstring injury.
• Similarly, the team has soured somewhat on Jay Ajayi. The second-year ball-carrier was a healthy scratch against the Seahawks and, per Salguero, did not like being deployed in Miami’s fourth preseason game. Another undetermined Ajayi action at the Dolphins’ facility helped lead to Adam Gase leaving him off the travel list for Seattle, Salguero reports, and Gase wanted to send him a professionalism-fueled message. The first-year coach told media Ajayi showed more maturity since the benching, but the 2015 fifth-round pick who was the starter before Arian Foster‘s arrival delivered the same response to nine questions Friday in a two-minute interview, Salguero reports.
• The Patriots paid out varying injury settlements to defensive lineman Frank Kearse, running back Tyler Gaffney and linebacker Kevin Snyder, Ben Volin of the Boston Globe reports. Kearse received $201K for what amounts to eight weeks of pay, with Gaffney’s Pats divorce netting the running back $117K, or six weeks’ salary, Volin reports. Snyder’s was just $25K (one week). The trio released from the Pats’ IR cannot sign with another team until their settlements pay out.
• Former New England executive Michael Lombardi has indeed resurfaced in the media, accepting a position with Fox Sports. On a Friday appearance on the Bill Simmons Podcast, the former Pats front office staffer and Browns GM categorized Jimmy Garoppolo as a superior deep-ball thrower to Tom Brady. “[Garoppolo] does things really well and in the right scheme, in the right system, he can be really effective. He throws the ball vertically down the field better than [Brady] does,” Lombardi told Simmons (via Doug Kyed of NESN.com). “And he can make throws all over the field. He can move around.” Kyed points out the 39-year-old Brady ranks 36th of 45 qualified quarterbacks with at least 100 deep attempts since 2012.