The Patriots signed tight end Kellen Winslow after losing tight end Aaron Hernandez to an ankle injury, and Winslow thinks he can be the same kind of weapon in the Patriots’ passing game that Hernandez has been.
“You just have to watch tape, but yeah, there’s some similarities there,” Winslow told reporters, via Mike Reiss of ESPN. “He’s probably one of the most versatile tight ends in the game, if not the most. He goes all around the field. He can play any position. He’s very versatile in what he does and he’s smart. He’s a very good player.”
Winslow added, however, that he knows he doesn’t yet occupy the same place in the Patriots’ offense that Hernandez does: “But it’s going to take me a while to catch up to where he’s at,” Winslow said.
Still, Winslow believes he should be able to develop a quick rapport with Tom Brady.
“At the end of the day, football is football,” he said. “What they’re doing here, the volume of the playbook is a lot. It’s going to take some time to get used to. It’s verbiage and getting used to the calls and getting used to Tom’s cadence, and knowing not just what I have, but what everybody has, because people switch positions here.”
Although Winslow’s bad knee makes many people question whether he still has anything left, he did catch 75 passes for 763 yards last season. That suggests that he does have something left, and if he does, New England is a place where he should be able to contribute.