In retrospect, Patriots decision to cut Ty Warren wasn't all that surprising

The New England Patriots released defensive lineman Ty Warren on Friday in what was yet another relatively surprising move in what has been an extremely surprising couple of day.

But was it really all that surprising? Maybe we should have seen this coming.

Ty Warren was carrying a cap number of $5.878 million this season, which made him the 4th largest cap hit on the team behind only Tom Brady ($13.2 million), Logan Mankins (franchised for $10.1 million), and Chad Ochocinco ($6.2 million).

Warren, while a pretty good player, simply isn’t worthy of a cap hit like that.

But it couldn’t have been just a cap issue, because the Patriots likely could have convinced Warren to rework his contract to lower the cap number. Warren told the Boston Herald that the Patriots “choose to go in a different direction” defensively. That doesn’t sound like a salary issue, that sounds like a team getting rid of a player they no longer felt fit their system.

The thing is, when healthy, Warren is the perfect fit for their system. He’s a very good run-stopping 3/4 defensive end, and those types of guys don’t grow on trees. With him on the roster, the Patriots have some insurance if Albert Haynesworth proves to be too insane for Bill Belichick. Without him, Haynesworth becomes a key player for the Patriots.

But Warren had fallen out of favor with Belichick and the front office over the last year and a half or so.

Back in March of 2010, Warren decided to skip the Patriots “voluntary” offseason workouts to return to school and get his degree. Belichick definitely wasn’t happy about this decision, and he had every right to be upset.

The Patriots were paying Warren a tremendous amount of money to play football. Under the best of circumstances, Warren would likely only play until his mid-30s. There was going to be plenty of time post-NFL for Warren to finish his degree.

When Warren finally showed up, he decided to have season-ending hip surgery instead of playing through pain for the 2010 season. The Patriots front office reportedly wasn’t too happy with this decision, especially since had he been with the throughout the offseason they may have found the injury earlier and fixed it in time to get something out of him in 2010.

It was believed that the hard feelings that developed during the summer of 2010 had blown over, but perhaps they resurfaced a bit after Warren came up lame during his conditioning run earlier this week.

The history of injuries, what the Patriots considered a lack of commitment, the late decision to have season ending surgery in 2010, the failed conditioning run, and the huge cap hit made releasing Warren an easy, and in retrospect quite obvious, decision.

**Thanks to PatsCap.com for the salary cap information.