Recently signed tight end Troy Niklas' free-agent visit to New England proved to be an eventful one.

Glen Farley The Enterprise @GFarley_ent

FOXBORO – It remains to be seen whether recently signed tight end Troy Niklas can fit in the Patriots offense.

During his free-agent visit to New England earlier this month, he exhibited the ability to execute in a hurry-up offense.

“It was actually kind of a crazy story how this all went down,” Niklas said while taking a break at the Patriots voluntary offseason conditioning program on Thursday. “I got the call on Saturday (March 31) from my agent saying ‘Hey, you know, they’re interested. They want you to come up and visit,’ but my wife (Chloe) was almost nine months pregnant and we were like, ‘We could have the baby any day now.’

“So I talked to my wife and said, ‘I’d really like to go up there,’ and it was a team I’d love to play for, so she was like, ‘OK, just get up there and get back as soon as you can.’ So Sunday I get the call saying, ‘Hey, they want you up there on Monday.’ So I flew out (from Phoenix) on Sunday, which was Easter. I get in and then meet with all of the coaches. It was just awesome. They’re just on top of everything. You could tell that they’re really specific about everything, so I was really excited about that.

“I did some other things and then driving back in a van I called her, called my wife, and was just like, ‘You all right? I want to make sure everything’s good.’ She was like ‘Yeah, we're headed to the hospital. I think my water broke.’ So I’m stuck here and we’re kind of like, ‘Well, can I get an earlier flight out?’ I pretty much had met with everybody, but the flight that I had was the best flight to get on. So I flew back, made it back to the hospital, was able to get a little cat nap in before the whole process started at the hospital, and then early Tuesday morning we had my baby daughter (Romy), so a crazy turn of events.”

One day later, the new father had a new job, Niklas, the Arizona Cardinals’ second-round pick in the 2014 NFL Draft, signing a one-year deal with the Patriots.

Injury plagued to this point in his NFL career, the 6-foot-6, 270-pound Niklas, who originally went to Notre Dame as a linebacker, was used primarily as a blocking tight end behind or in combination with Jermaine Gresham in Arizona, making just 19 receptions for 203 yards and three touchdowns in 41 games over four seasons, 11 catches for 132 yards and one TD coming in 15 games last year.

Niklas is one of five tight ends currently under contract with the Patriots, joining Rob Gronkowski, Dwayne Allen, Jacob Hollister and Will Tye.