Free agent defensive end Jared Odrick visited Monday with the Patriots, with whom he passed a physical, reports Mike Kaye of WLTV. The Patriots now have “real” interest in signing the 29-year-old, tweets Ben Volin of the Boston Globe.
New England is the first team to publicly court Odrick since the Jaguars released him last week. In doing so, the Jaguars saved $8.5MM against the cap in 2017 and brought an end to a disappointing tenure in Jacksonville for Odrick. After signing a five-year, $42.5MM contract with the Jags in 2015, the ex-Dolphin totaled 32 tackles and 6.5 sacks in 22 games (all starts). He missed 10 contests last year with injuries, which ended a streak of five straight 16-game seasons.
The Patriots could lose a pair of established defensive ends, Jabaal Sheard and Chris Long, when free agency opens March 9. In that event, adding Odrick would give the Pats a fallback option at the position. Odrick has amassed 63 starts, 23 sacks and five forced fumbles since entering the NFL in 2010.
He would be some welcome depth but obviously not for that kind of money.
This offseason/draft should have some interesting wheeling and dealing for a lot of teams. I’m curious to see how the QB carousel plays out.
If the Pats are able to keep both Ryan and Hightower(they better) then I see them going DE in the first round of the draft
I was wondering how many hits and how many hurries did he have. Making a QB uncomfortable is a big part of a DE.