3 free agents Patriots are lucky they didn’t sign this offseason

1. Will Fuller

The Patriots were always going to splurge on the wide receiver position in 2021 free agency. We just didn’t know which direction they’d go in, and we certainly didn’t expect them to sign Kendrick Bourne and Nelson Agholor to multi-year deals.

We won’t go as far as to call those signings a revelation — Bourne has certainly been more impactful than Agholor — but both players have been markedly more productive than some of the other wideouts from the 2021 class.

Look no further than Will Fuller, who was maybe the most coveted WR on the market and inked a one-year, $10 million deal with the division-rival Dolphins. To call this move a bust would be a gross understatement, as the oft-injured speedster has appeared in just two games for Miami this year.

Fuller missed the first game after finishing his six-game suspension from 2020, then sat out Week 2 for “personal reasons.” He returned for Weeks 3 and 4 and then suffered a fractured finger that landed him on IR. He hasn’t played since.

While first-round pick Jaylen Waddle has held up his end of the bargain for Miami, Fuller is living proof that signing injury-prone receivers just isn’t worth the price of admission. In this case, the Dolphins have absorbed a $10.57 million cap hit for four catches and 26 receiving yards.

Safe to say the Patriots dodged a bullet here.

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