It's sadly comical how in a league with 32 teams time and again it's the Patriots being linked to various White free agents. I guess it's just a matter of time until reports emerge of James Laurinaitis scheduling a visit to Foxboro. . . copycat league my ass.
Because of the squad's annual ritual of signing quality white free agents, the Patriots are also routinely "linked" to white players in seemingly every "mock" draft, which is highly erroneous given their coal black draft history. In the Belichick era, the franchise has rarely drafted any whites at any position other than backup QB (O'Connell, Cassel, Kingsbury, Robinson, Mallett, Garopollo) , TE (Thomas, Mills, Gronkowski, Derby), OL (Mankins, Stork, Vollmer, Solder, Kaczur), and P/K/LS (Gostwoski, Mesko, Cardona). The precious few white defensive players that have been drafted in the past 15 years (Klecko, Ruud, Ebner, Bequette) never became starters.
DE Chris Long is meeting with the team today, so I really hope he signs with the Pats this week...
http://espn.go.com/blog/new-england...ran-de-chris-long-visiting-patriots-on-monday
The Pats do have 3 quality DE's in Ninkovich, Jones, and Sheard, but the Jones/Sheard are both injury prone.