Patriots sign McKenzie, release Tank Williams

Why so late with McKenzie? Was the injured player holding out for more? Did the Pats want to assure that McKenzie wasn't messing up his life by waiting on the contract? Another week of holdout and the NFL would turn red-faced at the front office's behavior.

wow busy day at patriot place.

No surprise about Williams. He didn't look like he was anywhere near filling the role as a SS/LB tweener, heir to Rodney Harrison's position.

With these two moves, the Pats have 77 guys on the roster, McKenzie certain to go to IR and LeVoir probable for the PUP. So, they're effectively set at the 75 number for the September 1st mandatory cutdown already.

Nice to see that the Pats have gotten the young LB from South Florida in the fold. Now he can rehab at the facilities and hopefully be 100% for 2010. Mike Reiss previously said he saw McKenzie as a bonus draft pick for next year, and that's not a bad way of looking at it.

Sorry to see Tank Williams go, more for the potential he showed last training camp than for anything I heard about him this summer. I don't know if this means they are relatively happy with the LB and safety corps they have, if he was just a man without a true position, or maybe he never did fully recover from the injury. I'll be curious to see if he gets picked up.

One word for why Williams was expendable. Chung.

Wasn't Hochstein worth more than a 7th round pick?

The delay with McKenzie was probably that it wasn't a priority. He was going to get paid the market rate no matter what.

However, the Pats wanted to get all the other rookies signed ASAP so they didn't miss any training camp.

It looks like the Pats then started working on a number of deals, and did the McKenzie one when everyone had time to consider it. I doubt anybody was sweating it in the least.

@ David B --

Re: Williams, it probably was a little of each. It looked to me, in the 08 off-season, like the Pats were searching for another SS/LB hybrid like Harrison (and Milloy before him to some extent) and Williams was brought in as a candidate to eventually take over from Harrison. But, early this off-season, both Belichick and Dimitroff were talking about a shifting philosophy WRT the safety position. The idea they both expressed was, instead of having a hybrid SS/LB as distinct from the FS, to develop players for the two positions who could be more interchangeable in order to add some flexibility. Maybe Williams ending up on IR last season had something to do with that. And then BB drafted Chung instead of a guy who more closely resembled Harrison in physical stature (e.g., Nic Harris, now with BUF). So, with Chung looking so promising and Williams having no noteworthy impact in camp or pre-season . . .

Are you ok, PaulK? You're being a little dramatic, I think. Are you supposing that McKenzie has been in the dark this whole time, sweating about what he's going to do with himself after the Patriots hang him out to dry? Get a grip, weirdo.

Chung's got way more upside than Williams, and was probably drafted for a similar or even identical role. I don't see the need to keep two of these guys on the roster, either. Tank should still have a future in the NFL. If last year's injury had any lasting effects, I don't think he would have made it through training camp.

Hopefully Tank remains in football shape and either finds another team or is available as a late season veteran pick-up should injuries become an issue in our secondary (but that NEVER happens to the Pats, right?).

The last game I think he played one down, right? He might of tweeked something and his rehab was set back, again. AJ has point. Boy, my exceptions for Tank have been extinguished!

i bet he goes to denver or kansas city...just a gut feeling!