New England Patriots signed Danny Amendola on Tuesday

Now this really is some interesting news coming from Tom E. Curran of CSNNE. The New England Patriots beat writer tweeted that the Patriots signed Danny Amendola on Tuesday, when talks broke off between Wes Welker and the Pats and Welker tested the open market. They presumably held off on calling the Amendola deal official before Welker signed with the Denver Broncos, which is another impressive job done by the Pats in keeping things quiet.

Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

This is interesting, and it falls in line with what I have read elsewhere. The Patriots saw that Welker was set to hit the open market after rejecting their incentive-based deal (Welker was likely a bit “paranoid” and wanted the guaranteed money and not cash based on incentives he was afraid he wouldn’t meet), and they decided to quickly get to work on locking up Danny Amendola. The Patriots viewed Amendola as their perfect backup plan in case they couldn’t keep Welker, and they were afraid of not being able to sign either one of them. I mean, that would have truly been the worst-case scenario- coming away with neither Welker nor Amendola.

So the Patriots inked up Amendola, and they decided to take the “safer” route. That might not have been the best decision with 20/20 hindsight, but at least they came away with something. Amendola can succeed as Welker’s replacement, because he is younger and offers some upside going downfield in “evolving” the offense, but Amendola isn’t nearly as durable as Welker (big concern) and isn’t the “real” thing (Welker is the prototype).

But Amendola is a pretty damn good “fake”, and it’s all about looking at the bright sides of what happened even though Welker is gone. When Welker came back to the Patriots after receiving a “better” (slightly more guaranteed money, but no incentives to our knowledge) deal from the Denver Broncos, the Pats had already signed Amendola.

Curran’s tweet sounds like confirmation of what happened, although it seems even more damning at this point in time. I still can’t fully wrap my head around what happened, but what I do know is that there is one glaring need for the Pats that still needs a lot of work- the defense. More specifically, the secondary is still a big need for this team.

You can follow Joe Soriano on Twitter @SorianoJoe.