Breakdown by Patriots players (team awarded in bold)
TE Lee Smith (five claims): Buffalo, San Francisco, Tampa Bay, New Orleans, New York Jets.
OG Thomas Austin (four): Cincinnati, Houston, St. Louis, Indianapolis.
WR Brandon Tate (three): Cincinnati, Arizona, New York Jets.
TE Will Yeatman (three): Miami, Tampa Bay, Indianapolis.
DT Landon Cohen (one): Seattle.
In addition to those players, S Brandon Meriweather (Chicago), CB Jonathan Wilhite (Denver), LB Ricky Brown (Oakland) and S James Sanders (Atlanta) have all signed elsewhere.
Nine players who the Patriots released signed elsewhere. That's a pretty good indication of how strong the roster is.
The Packers led the league with five claimed players last year and 10 claims total. Worked out well for them, as they won the Super Bowl.
A lot of people are probably wondering why the Patriots weren't able to find any trade partners for those players. I don't know for sure -- I'm sure they tried -- but I go back to what happened last year with the Packers. They were mighty ticked off that so many of their players got claimed after no one would trade for them. I think the Packers were asking too much -- teams would only go so far before falling back to waivers -- and readjusted their thinking this year. The Packers swung two cutdown trades this year after none last year. Maybe the Patriots will learn a lesson and adjust what they're asking for in trades. Again, this is just a guess.
Here is how the league's waiver wire broke down by number claims made by a team, and then on the right the teams that had players claimed and how popular they were:
