The New England Patriots are among the teams interested in signing free agent receiver Golden Tate, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. Rapoport said on NFL Network that the Patriots were interested in trading for Tate at the deadline last season, and are again interested in him this March. They have competition. The Pittsburgh Steelers are among a handful of teams also showing interest.
With the Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles in 2018, the 30-year-old had 74 receptions for 795 yards and four touchdowns. The Eagles acquired him at the trade deadline, and seemed to struggle to acclimate him to their offense. In 2017, he had 92 receptions for 1,003 yards and five touchdowns.
Bill Belichick is a big fan.
“Golden’s excellent with the ball in his hands,” Belichick said in September 2018 before the Patriots’ matchup against the Lions. “He’s good without the ball in his hands, too.
“He gets open a lot, runs very good routes, he’s a hard guy to cover, but then once he touches the ball, he’s strong, he runs through contact, he’s fast, he’s quick, he changes directions well and he has good vision, so he sees openings and space in the field from his punt return background, kick return background and so forth. When he gets the ball, he can get into those spaces, and he runs through tackles. He has good balance.”
And the feeling is mutual. Tate said this offseason that playing for the Patriots would interest him. He’s gota small taste of how playing for the Patriots might be by playing under Detroit Lions coach Matt Patricia, who was the Patriots defensive coordinator.
“Man, I would love it,” Tate said of playing for the Patriots on “Prostyle Podcast” during a sit-down interview in February. “I would love it. That organization — they’ve proven to be champions year in and year out. They work hard for sure. But you know where you’re going to be at the end of the season. You’re going to be looking at not [just] going to the playoffs, but you’re going to be looking at maybe a first-round bye, which is key.
“You gotta admire that organization. They do things right. They’ve been doing it for a long, long, long time. So, I’d definitely love to be a part of something like that and catch a few passes from ol’ Tommy Boy. Julian [Edelman] is a buddy of mine. I’m real good buddies with him and I’ve heard good things. Kyle Van Noy, who got traded from Detroit and has been there and has been balling out since, has said great things about the organization. I definitely would not mind going over there for sure.”
