Rams sign TE Matthew Mulligan

... who could very well be the first Ram in team history from the University of Maine. Mulligan is 27, 6'4", 255 lbs with 11 starts in 34 career games since the Jets signed him as an undrafted rookie free agent in 2008.

Mulligan is strictly a blocking TE. He has 6 career catches for 60 yards and is a poor receiver. He runs bad routes and has bad hands. Various fan reports describe him as a decent-to-very-good blocker, though, dominant at times, a good pass protector. He works hard, fights hard, blocks with good leverage. Sounds like a better in-line blocker than a lead blocker. He has also long-snapped.

The problem, however, is that Mulligan was, as some fans put it, a "penalty machine" last season. He committed nine penalties for 64 yards, six of them pre-snap - I assume false starts. And he doesn't get anywhere near as many snaps as most players. He got into shouting matches with coaches and teammates as a result of his, and their, frustration with his stupid penalties. In one November game, he got chewed out on the sideline by OC BRIAN SCHOTTENHEIMER after his penalty erased Shonn Greene's longest run of the season. He was only on the Jets' roster because Jeff Cumberland blew an ACL in week 3. Nobody there seems reluctant to have let him go.

So was this Schottenheimer's idea? Bring in the Alex Barron of tight ends? And he gets a TWO-year contract? Brilliant. Unless he bears down, learns to focus and stops it with the penalties, Mulligan won't even be an improvement over Stephen Spach. If he does stop it with the penalties, he could give the Ram running game a very important component it has badly lacked.

Big, fat thumbs down on this signing. Why give a player a two-year contract who may not have the discipline to make it through training camp? He'd better at least be cheap to cut.

-$-