The Patriots entered the offseason in need of wide receiver help and they seemingly had several appealing options at their disposal to address that void.
How New England ultimately answered the bell came as surprise to plenty of football fans and media members alike, however.
The Patriots landed two wide receivers in free agency: Nelson Agholor and Kendrick Bourne. Neither Agholor nor Bourne is a No. 1 — or maybe even No. 2 — wideout, and both players have yet to be consistently productive at the NFL level. Still, New England dished out a combined $21 million in guaranteed money to acquire the two new receivers.
NFL analyst Mike Clay, for one, believes the Patriots’ deals for Agholor and Bourne represented the most head-scratching move of the offseason to date.
“The Patriots overpaying role-playing wide receivers,” Clay wrote for ESPN.com. “Nelson Agholor and Kendrick Bourne are fine No. 3 or No. 4 options on most teams. But New England seemed to misjudge a soft wide receiver market by committing $16 million to the inconsistent Agholor (more than Will Fuller V and Marvin Jones Jr. earned, among others) and $5 million to Bourne (more than John Brown, Breshad Perriman and Tyrell Williams agreed to, among others).”
The obvious hope for Patriots fans is that New England’s coaching staff will be able to get the most out of Agholor and Bourne, who are set to enter the seventh and fifth seasons of their NFL careers, respectively. The Patriots clearly see something in Bourne, who they reportedly twice tried to trade for during his four-year stint in San Francisco. Agholor, meanwhile, has flashed home-run potential and could benefit from the type of offense the Patriots are expected to run in 2021.
Did New England overpay for both Agholor and Bourne? Probably. But that won’t be of any concern if both pass-catchers hit the ground running in Foxboro.
