The Patriots announced their second and third outside Free Agent signings today, finalizing a three-year pact with former Chargers Safety Steve Gregory, and defensive tackle Marcus Harrison.

Gregory was San Diego’s starter at safety in 2011, and while that’s not exactly a compliment, he played a lot of snaps and also has special teams experience.

Gregory and Harrison join Jonathan Fanene as the newest Patriots, while the team is also reportedly scheduled to meet with safety Laron Landry, wide receiver Anthony Gonzalez and DE/OLB Trevor Scott.

The Pats free agency plan is slowly becoming apparent: adding depth in the defensive front seven and at safety, while also kicking the tires on a wide out like Gonzalez. There’s no question the Pats lack depth at these positions and they are strategically rounding out the roster to protect themselves.

Fanene makes sense as the first singing as he projects to be the much needed situational pass rusher alongside a hopefully healthy Myron Pryor. For two seasons the Pats have lacked a true interior pass rushing threat due to injuries to Pryor and Mike Wright, forcing them to use Vince Wilfork in passing down situations, which is not his strength.

Most fans calling for pass rushers might not have realized it when Fanene signed, but he could be a significant part of the answer to the pass rush problems that have plagued New England, especially against the three-step drop passing game. The impact of a quality interior rusher is often understated, but against a team like Buffalo who like to get the ball out quick, interior rushers are invaluable. Especially one who can cause disruption like Fanene is known to do.

As always the Patriots are rounding out their roster at the positions they most lacked depth with mid-level veterans who may be devalued due to injuries or lack of playing time and/or opportunity. The aim is to go into the draft without a glaring personnel need. There could still be a talent need, but the base of competition at each position should be set.

Today Frenz and I welcome Wes Bunting of National Football Post to discuss some draft prospects with Patriots potential. Tune in live or catch it on Itunes immediately afterwards.

If you’re sick of all the Brandon Lloyd, Mario Williams and Mike Wallace speculation you’re in luck, all our questions about what the Patriots want to do this off-season will begin to be answered in just a little over twenty-four hours.

We missed out on the Free Agency Frenzy last year due to the lock out, but this year it’s back and better than ever by starting at 4pm EST instead of the usual midnight start time. So we’ll be riding high in the blogging saddle as news starts to come in of who’s whooing who and who’s signing where.

There are a lot of questions for the Patriots besides just simple speculation of who they might be interested in. Their own internal free agents could be more important than any potential outsider they might want to bring in.

But there’s one thing I do know, by the time the draft gets here the Patriots will have at least tried to fill all of their needs so they can have as much flexibility as possible for draft weekend. Not every position will be tied up neatly with a bow, but there should be enough veteran depth acquired at all positions to provide a competitive baseline once training camp opens.

However, the dynamic of the Patriots is sure to shift in the next week, and the moves they do or don’t make will give us a little bit of a window into where Belichick wants to take the team in 2012.

Will they offer a monster contract to a wide receiver or pass rusher? Will they continue to flirt with 4-3 defensive ends? How much turnover are they prepared for?

Just one more day until the 2012 Patriots begin to take shape.

They needed a reminder?

$58.25 million!?!?!?!

collectedclutter:

Got my shirts from @patspropaganda and I’m SO pleased!! Can’t wait to give my bestie hers :) (Taken with instagram)

Another satisfied customer! Get yours before supplies run out!!!

Do Your Job tees selling out fast! Get yours while I still have all sizes!

Fan made Patriots uniform mock up.

Always love when this stuff comes along (thank @Advil), these are not, I REPEAT NOT, any kind of official designs from Nike, but the uniforms will be changing this year. I expect the Patriots will stick to a similar style to what they have now, the fit just will probably be a little closer to the college uniforms you see Nike doing now.

Love the original Pats logo on the helmets. We can’t be too far off from a throwback season with this logo. I’d also love to see a late 90’s throwback as well.

So many uniforms… I don’t know what to do with myself.

(Check out some of his other Patriots uni mockups at Photo Album - Imgur)

Forgive me for not posting much by way of original content the last week or so. It’s not because I don’t care, nor have I given up being an uber Pats blogger, I’ve just been buried in draft research and before I come out and write a post like this one from four years ago (ignore me fawning over Vernon Gholston please) I like to really have a good sense of the prospects before I start commenting on them.

This will be the fifth draft that I’ve blogged about exclusively from a Patriots perspective. I don’t do mock drafts because I don’t know enough about the other 31 teams needs, and ultimately the only thing I really care about when I see a mock draft is who they have the Pats taking. What I do instead is a Patriots-only big board that lists prospects that I think fit what the Pats do (here is last years), ranked in order of value to the Pats and the Pats only. We’ll also do one final Pats-only mock draft the week before the draft.

Last year we had a pretty good year as far as predicting which prospects had Pats potential. Here were our stats:

• Patriots-Only Mock: 2 of 9 draftees correct
• Patriots-Only Big Board: 4 of 9 draftees ranked
• Positions Drafted: 5 of 9 correctly projected (missed TE, QB, 2nd DB, 2nd RB)

I can say now that I highly doubt I can match hitting 2 of the Pats picks this year (Nate Solder & Ras-I Dowling), but that won’t stop me from trying!

Here’s some of the nuggets that I’ve learned over the years of studying the Pats drafts.

Never discount a player based on a combine number

I see a lot of my fellow amateur draft pundits discount a player based solely on random stats like their 40 time, or 3-cone time, or their arm length, or anything else that gets measured in Indy. Ultimately I don’t think any stats you’ll find, especially at the combine, are the key to unlocking the secret code to a Belichick draft. They are pieces of the puzzle, but smaller ones on the periphery. For every “a player needs to be X, Y and Z to be drafted by the Pats at that position” there’s an exception, and if there hasn’t been one yet it doesn’t mean it’s set in stone.

Versatility/Football intelligence are prime factors

There’s no place for a one trick pony on the draft board. Receivers/Defensive Backs with return ability get a big check. Linemen who can play multiple spots do as well. The Patriots run thinking-man schemes on both sides of the ball. If the player doesn’t have the FBI to keep up he’s going to bust, no matter how talented he is physically.

Remember where Belichick comes from

Bill Belichick is the son of the guy who literally wrote the book on football scouting. Ultimately game film and production during the season are the most important factors. Also remember the kind of players Belichick grew up around at Navy. Those type of guys are the originators of the now cliched “Patriot Way”.

This all feeds back into the infamous Scott Pioli quote, “we’re building a team, not collecting talent”. There’s no set formula for building a resilient team like the 2011 Pats were, but we all know the kind of positive, hard working guys that fit best. I won’t necessarily take a guy off the board if he’s made some bad decisions in the past, but it’s usually apparent when a guy is a consistent meatball.

Be on the look out for freaks

Belichick has such a sense of history with the game of football, I believe he truly enjoys finding players who are freakish in one way or another. Just having that one unique skill gives Belichick something to play with and use to his advantage, so when a player has unique size/movement skills (Marcus Cannon) or unique ways of reading/reacting (Brandon Spikes) I believe BB finds himself intrigued.

Know exactly how the prospect fits on the Patriots

This nugget originally comes from Michael Holley’s book “War Room”, where this factor is hit on multiple times as something Pioli/Belichick demand. If you like a prospect you must know exactly how they fit in on the current Patriots and how they stack up. This why things like “pass rusher” or “safety” are too general when talking about the Patriots needs. 

What kind of safety would work best next to Patrick Chung? Or James Ihedigbo? Would they compliment each other? Would playing to the prospect’s strengths adversely affect the other DBs? Or would his strengths fill a need seamlessly?

How would this OLB conversion project be worked into a rotation with Rob Ninkovich and Mark Anderson (hopefully)? And how does that guy stack up against Markell Carter? How will they contribute in year one and is that a necessary missing ingredient for the team?

This year I find this is a big issue for those who project corners that they like. Not enough time is spent telling how the corner would fit in on the 2012 Pats. I can say right now that I have McCourty and Dowling penciled in on the outside, with Arrington in the slot. So will this corner compete to take one of their jobs? And if so does that reduce the value of the pick or even hurt the development of a guy like Dowling who was a high pick himself and might just need playing time to blossom?

So, as you can see a lot of thought needs to go into these projections and that is why I’m building my knowledge base before I start saying who I like or don’t like. Of course I only focus on the draft for three months per year. There are plenty of year-rounders out there that know their stuff, but very few know the Patriots depth and needs as well as they really should to make projections.

Now I don’t claim to be an expert. I have no formal scouting experience. All I can claim is that I’ve been paying attention and I love the challenge of trying to crack the BB code on draft day. I welcome all feedback during the draft process, whether you agree or not with my rankings and thoughts. Too many bloggers get overly offended if you disagree with them, but in the end none of us really know anything about what the true Patriots big board inside Gillette Stadium looks like, so let’s all just get along and have fun with it.

Patriots-only Big Board will be unveiled in 10 days!