The Falcons are signing Adrian Clayborn, according to Mike Reiss of ESPN.com (on Twitter). The defensive end will return to Atlanta on a one-year deal worth up to $4MM. 
This marks a homecoming for Clayborn, who spent 2015-2017 with the Falcons. In his final Atlanta season, Clayborn registered a career-high 9.5 sacks, but his 2018 follow-up with the Patriots (2.5 sacks) was not quite as impressive.
In mid-March, the Pats cut him loose. The Patriots used Clayborn as a pass-rushing specialist and employed him in 14 regular season games. All in all, he played in 30% of the team’s defensive snaps last year, but he was a healthy scratch in the final two contests of the season.
Even if he’s lost a step, Clayborn fills a need for the Falcons on the defensive line.
And this is why New England wins every other Super Bowl. Instead of paying an aging DL specialist $4M/yr., they will deploy a combination of a rookie and a $1 – $2M journeyman to fill this role and spend this extra money on Special Teams players. The Pats 44th – 52nd ranked players are more skilled than most teams’ 34th – 42nd ranked players, so while NE doesn’t have 5 or 6 elite players on its roster, their overall depth and talent is far superior to every other team when you look at their entire roster.
Someday, a team will try to emulate this formula, but by the amount of money spent in Free Agency this year, it looks like it will be a while until someone (besides NE) perfects it.
This is of course ignoring the fact that they just paid $10M for the same mediocre player last year coming off a clearly inflated sack total where 6 of the sacks came in one game against a LT who had no business appearing in an NFL game.
The Patriots’ success doesn’t boil down to a formula that’s easy to emulate. There are plenty of teams who let pricy players go and replace them with journeymen, and it doesn’t always have the same results.
works for us Patriot fans. That is until TB12 retires.