New England Patriots Should Be Closely Watching Jermichael Finley Situation

Packers "tight end" Jermichael Finley is set to be franchise tagged by the team, but the question now is, at what cost? The terms in the new NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement state that a player's position is determined by where they played the most snaps. 

Will he be classified as a tight end or a wide receiver?

Pro Football Focus' Neil Hornsby investigated the matter by looking into his snap counts in terms of where in the formation he lined up, and found that Finley could indeed be characterized as more of a wide receiver than a tight end.

If you're a fan of the New England Patriots, this should be a concern for you going forward.

The Patriots boast two of the best tight ends in football in Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski. The only problem with that is the exact distinction of them as tight ends.

A large part of the differentiation between tight end and receiver, for the purposes of Jermichael Finley, figures to be just as much about where in the formation he lined up as what his responsibility was. If that's the case, the Patriots could face a big issue in 2014.

According to RotoWorld, both Hernandez and Gronkowski's contracts expire that year.

If Finley's situation is any indication, both could be set to get paid handsomely. According to further stats from Pro Football Focus, Hernandez was a run blocker on 406 of a possible 1,051 downs (38.6 percent of downs he played), and was a pass blocker on just 11 downs (one percent). 

Gronkowski also ran more pass patterns than blocking assignments this year, but it was almost a dead-even split between the two, with 677 pass patterns (52.5 percent) and 612 plays as a blocker (47.4 percent). The split is close enough that it shouldn't matter terribly, especially if Gronkowski is lining up as a traditional tight end more often than not.

Hernandez? Not even close.

The guy is a wide receiver trapped in a tight end depth chart. The Patriots will eventually have to come to blows with the very same issue that faces the Packers right now. For now, they'd like to get the most out of their two dynamic tight ends while they can.

And they sure will.

So what do the Patriots do when 2014 rolls around? That's a long time down the road, but this situation will help us put a finger on what may lie ahead.

Hornsby closes his article out with an interesting thought: "Worst case, Packers and agent agree to a hybrid position that gives him a lot more cash than $5.4M."

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