Take a deep breath, people.
You're mad at the Patriots because they blew the Super Bowl. You should be. They did. If you're not still mad, your understanding of the value of a Super Bowl title might be skewed.
You're worried about the Patriots. You should be. Nate Solder might leave, and that will leave the Pats with a question mark blocking Tom Brady's blind side.
On top of all of that (plus the anticipated loss of Malcolm Butler), the Patriots lost Danny Amendola to the Dolphins on Tuesday. That stinks. Danny Amendola is good.
Yet if you're devastated by his departure, you're either still angry at Bill Belichick or you're way, way overvaluing Danny Amendola.
The wound is still fresh, but I think it's the latter.
Now, this isn't a Danny Amendola smear campaign. That would be too tough a task. There's really nothing bad you can say about the guy. He kept taking pay cuts and he was a stud in some big games. This is more of an attempt to put things in perspective for fans who might think the sky is falling.
New England Patriots
Any and all "it's just Danny Amendola" talk will likely be met with a barrage of he's-much-better-in-the-playoffs talk. He was, but that was mostly by design. The Patriots took it easy with Amendola during the regular season, where he averaged just 31.63 yards a game over his 69-game New England tenure. In the postseason, that average bumped up to 54.53.
Yet Amendola really only had one dominant postseason in his five years with the Patriots, which was the recently concluded 2017 campaign. He led the Pats with 348 receiving yards and tied for second with two touchdowns. That was only one of two postseasons in which he had 100 yards receiving, however.
And do you know many of his 13 playoff games saw Amendola lead the Patriots in receiving yards? Two. They both came this past season.
So yes, the loss of the 32-year-old is a bummer, but he was a complementary piece. It hurts depth and the team has obvious questions at receiver given the health status of Julian Edelman and Malcolm Mitchell. But the Pats lost a fan favorite, not a top player, and certainly not someone they had any business guaranteeing $8.25 million given their needs elsewhere.