The New England Patriots defensive lineman Vince Wilfork is organizing a draft day fund raiser party at Milford’s Pinz Entertainment on April 26th. The Patriot fans can meet Vince Wilfork and his teammates who will assemble at the Draft day and fans will get to see the players who are selected to play for the Patriots. It was in 2004 that Wilfork came up with this novel concept of allowing fans to come and watch the first round pick of the NFL Draft and thereby raise money for diabetes research for University of Miami’s Diabetes Research Center.

Both Wilfork and his wife Bianca have been organizing the First Day Draft party since 2004 and they have raised a sum close to $90,000 in the past four years. A silent and live auction of the Patriots goodies and merchandise will take place during the event and the proceeds that are collected from these auctions will benefit the Diabetes Research Institute.

The New England Patriots DL Richard Seymour is an avid traveler and this year he chose to go to Israel with mate Benjamin Watson and team owner Robert Kraft for his off season vacation. Seymour thanked the team owner Kraft and his family for inviting him and his wife to a trip around Israel. Richard Seymour is back at the Gillette Stadium for the off-season’s training programs.

Seymour told the reporters that he was fascinated about the sights and sounds that Israel had to offer and was longing to visit the place after reading about its rich culture and history. He also watched Big Blue Jerusalem, a strong Israeli football league team, win a game 38-0 over Tel Aviv. Seymour said that he was provided with a safer and secure environment as there was potential danger always lurking around in the peace starved nation. He also revealed that he and his wife got baptized in the Jordan River.

The Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said that he was pretty pleased to note that free agent corner back Fernando Bryant has signed to play for them and it is always better to have a corner back with excellent experience and productive value. Bryant has been playing in the NFL season for the past nine years and has played a total of 110 games in his NFL career. He started his NFL career with the Jacksonville Jaguars in 1999. He has made 403 solo tackles out of the 509 career tackles and has had 109 starts. He played for the Jaguars from 1999 – 2003 and then had a stint for the Detroit Lions from 2004-07.

Bryant had started all the games for the Lions as a left corner back and made 76 tackles last season, which is his career best total in a single season since his first year with the Jaguars. The New England Patriots are happy to have such a versatile veteran in their team for the 2008 season.

New England Patriots has sent two of their scouts to identify prospects of getting drafts in the next month NFL from Boston College. Though many NFL teams considered quarterback Matt Ryan as a good choice, Patriots seemed to be more interested in Jamie Silva who is a native of Rhode Island and presently playing as the safety for Boston College. Patriots Scouts were interested in some other players as well. Jamie Silva said that he had some discussions with the officials of Patriots and yet to decide the place he will be attributed in the team.

New England has offered him the safety position and a place in special team also. Silva is ready to accept any position given to him by the Patriots. Many think that Silva is better for special teams. He just wants to get into a team and play his favorite game. He is sure that he will get a position in a team by April and is ready to impress the coaches with his performance. Patriots were not very active during the free agency days last year and will definitely try to compensate it during the NFL draft in April this year.

The Patriot’s players Matt Light and Tedy Bruschi are doing all sorts of possible things including hunting; posing for camera and golfing to raise money for various charitable activities they are involved in. Matt Light is working for the uplift of the Native American children and he is arranging an adventure camp for them this summer. The camp will bring together the youngsters from Rhode Island as well as Native Americans for two weeks and the camp will have outdoor activities including football camp for 5 days. Light did hunting of Buffalo in the Northern Cheyenne reservation to feed the children at the Boys and Girls Club in Northern Cheyenne.

The kids from this club have already visited Light’s home in Massachusetts and he is planning a golf adventure in July in Ireland as part of charity golf tour conducted by the Southwest Ireland charity group. A portion of the money generated will go to the Light Foundation. Tedy Bruschi, another Patriot is doing “a large scale stroke awareness campaign” to help the victims of stroke. Bruschi, who is a stroke survivor, met a number of stroke survivors from the New England area and posed for photos with them. These photos will be used during the stroke awareness campaign.

The New England Patriots re-signed their defensive linesman Mike Wright who was a restricted free agent and the terms of the deal has not yet been disclosed. Mike Wright has been in the NFL season for the past three years and he has represented the Patriots in all the three seasons so far. He came into the New England Patriots team as a rookie free agent in the year 2005 on Aril 29 and has so far played 38 games in NFL. He has made five starts in his three seasons with the Patriots and this 26 year old defensive linesman has made one starts in his nine games last season for the Patriots.

The year 2007 was not that productive for Mike Wright as he made 12 tackles in his nine games out of which nine were solo tackles. He was put on the reserve bench with a foot injury last season and this 6 foot 4 inch giant made his career high tackle of 32 solo out of the 47 tackles in 2006 season. He was placed in the reserve/ injury list in his rookie year and his current tally includes 75 tackles that has 51 solo and 1.5 sacks, two fumble recoveries and one forced fumble.

The New England Patriots are going in for an expansion of their football community to reach millions of their fans through the newly launched website NewEnglandFootballl.com that will find a place as an exhibit in the hall at the Patriot Place. The Hall has sent in the registrations and information details to all directors, head coaches and other management staff of about 640 odd New England schools that has a football team and has requested them to register in the newly created website. Once the school has given all its details, a particular page with a password will be made available to the school wherein they can maintain the records, upload photos and feed all the news for their fans to read.

The Hall at Patriot Place Executive Director, Bryan Morry, said that he is very excited about the launch of this novel concept and said that this website will be a huge hit in the years to come. He feels that it will be a great site for the fans to know more about high school football and will get to know a lot of information about the players of various high schools in the New England area. Any fan interested to know about the history, traditions, rivals, milestones, champions and so on of a particular team in the New England region, need to just go to the New England Football.com website and all the information that he needs will be there in the website.

The New England Patriots have re-signed Ray Ventrone, an exclusive rights free agent safety player, into their team on Tuesday and the terms of the contract has not yet been disclosed. He was first picked up by the Patriots as an undrafted free agent in 2005 on April 28. The 24 year old player has so far played in two playoff games and two regular season games for the Patriots. Ventrone is a defensive back and was the member of the New England Patriots in 2005 season and had to sit on the reserve bench due to injury in the 2006 season. He then signed with the New York Jets for the 2007 season on Feb 21 and was released during the final pre season roster cuts on September 2nd.

Ray Ventrone, a promising young defensive back, was signed to the Patriots practice squad in Sept 19, and finally got into the active Patriots roster on Nov 3. He made his NFL debut in the match that the Patriots played against Indianapolis and also played in their regular season final game against the Giants. He was given the chance to show his skills in the AFC Championship game as well as the Super Bowl XLII, where he made his career’s first special teams tackle.

The veteran free agents Lewis Sanders and Tank Williams were signed by the New England Patriots. Lewis Sanders will be the cornerback and Tank will be in safety position of the team. Sanders, 29 years of age has experience from 8 NFL seasons and has played for three teams, four years for Cleveland Browns, two years with Houston Texans and last year was with Atlanta Falcons . Cleveland Browns drafted Sanders into the team in the fourth round of the NFL draft in 2000. Till date Sanders has played 87 games in his career with 25 starts and 172 tackles. While he was with Atlanta Falcons, he played 14 games before he had a chest injury.

Tank Williams had his last season with Minnesota Vikings and has played in 6 NFL seasons. He was the discovery of Tennessee Titans in the second round of the 2002 NFL draft. He has 70 career games to his credit with 59 starts and remarkable 303 tackles. Tank Williams was out of the game in 2006 due to knee injury and in 2007 he played 13 games. These two veterans are an asset to any team and Patriots have full faith in the capacity of these players.

The New England Patriots have re-signed veteran wide receiver Jabar Gaffney. The new contract was entered on March 5, 2008. Jabar Gaffney is an NFL veteran who has seen six seasons with the Houston Texans from 2002 to 2005 and the Patriots from 2006 to 2007. Jabar Gaffney is 27 years old and has played in a total of 91 games with a record of 63 game starts and 218 passes that he caught for 2,600 yards overall. He also was able to make 13 touchdowns during this time.

The exact terms of the re-signing with Jabar Gaffney remains hush-hush as of now. However, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick feels more confident having Jabar Gaffney as part of his team and in Patriots colors. “Jabar is a very good fit for our offense,” Belichick commented briefly on the newest member of his football team. Jabar Gaffney was first signed by New England Patriots as a free agent in October 6, 2006. He actively participated in 27 games and made 13 starts within the last two years. Jabar Gaffney graduated from the University of Florida where he was among the school’s team first in selection. He is 6-foot-1-inch tall and weighs 200 pounds.