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Home > Blogs > Dawging the Browns > Archives > 2009 > March > 05
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Look, they signed someone!
Tight end Robert Royal agreed to contract terms as the team plunged into the free-agent market after missing out on all the better players.
Royal essentially replaces Kellen Winslow, who was traded to Tampa Bay for some draft choices recently.
“We are excited to add Robert to our team,” GM George Kokinis said in a statement released by the team. “He has been a consistent professional and effective blocker throughout his NFL career and we feel that he will complement our tight ends group very well.”
Tight ends on the roster now include Royal, Steve Heiden, Darnell Dinkins and Martin Rucker.
Relevant Royal information from the press release:
In his seven-year NFL career, he has started 65 of 82 career games for the Redskins (2002-2005) and Bills (2006-08) and has established career highs in receptions and reception yards in each of the last four seasons.
In 2008, he caught 33 passes for 351 yards and 1 touchdown in 15 games, including seven starts. In 2007 he caught 25 passes for 248 yards and 3 scores, and in 2006, he caught 23 passes for 233 yards and 1 touchdown.
Royal caught 18 passes for 131 yards and 1 touchdown in 2005, his last season with the Redskins before signing with the Bills in March 2006.
Royal entered the league as a fifth-round draft choice of the Redskins in 2002 out of LSU, where he was first-team All-SEC and a team captain as a senior and started 24 of 42 career games.
He spent his rookie season on the injured-reserve list then caught 5 passes for 48 yards in six games in 2003. Half of the 8 passes he caught in 2004 went for touchdowns, including one in each of the last three games of the season. He matched that streak of three consecutive games with a touchdown catch in 2006 with Buffalo, becoming the first Bills tight end to record that feat since 1963.
