When the New England Patriots signed wide receiver Brandon Lloyd last May, there was a lot of buzz surrounding the team.
 Brandon Lloyd’s first year with the Patriots was surprisingly underwhelming. (FILE:USPresswire) |
For starters, many expected Lloyd to join the team, given his close relationship to Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. Above and beyond McDaniels and Lloyd’s relationship, however, the Pats were in need of an outside receiver to stretch the field.
The 31-year-old wide out had a solid season with New England, finishing with 74 receptions for 911 yards and four touchdowns. Despite his statistics, his production on the Patriots high-octane offense was surprisingly very mediocre.
Throughout the season the Pats seemed to force the ball to Lloyd, even when the results were negative. In many games the targets were nearly double his reception total. While he made the most difficult acrobatic catches look so easy, he also made the more simple catches look tough. His inconsistent hands, dropped balls and average production has his career with the Patriots put into question. Now, the question remains: Could Brandon Lloyd be a cap casualty?
ESPNBoston.com’s Mike Reiss weighs in:
“Here are the key facts with Lloyd: He is due a $3 million bonus at some point in 2013, and has a base salary of $1.9 million. His salary cap charge is scheduled to be $4.5 million. Do the Patriots view Lloyd, his past production, and his future projection to be worth it? I’m interested to find out the answer, which might not come until after June 1, because I’m not sure it’s a slam dunk.”
My Take:
Lloyd’s situation is even more complicated with the unresolved contract negotiations around Wes Welker. Not to mention the Patriots have almost no long-term developmental options on the roster and are lacking a playmaking receiver who can play outside the numbers.
Lloyd is a fine fourth or fifth option, including Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez, but I don’t believe he can be the number one receiver. New England needs to bring in some young talent and have to make upgrades in several spots on the roster. If keeping Lloyd around prohibits them for doing either one of those, I believe he should be let go.
Do you have a Twitter account? Be sure to follow me: @PatriotsHaven!
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Brandon Lloyd was used horribly and I mean horribly by the Patriots. New England had an average at best offensive line for passes (30-40) yards downfield and usually Brady was rushed hard in these situations. Brady has no mobility and can’t move out of the pocket.
As a fan of BL, who has followed him since 1999, when he was a freshman at Illinois, it was a diservice seeing how he was used. He is one of the best route runners in the NFL. I saw very few passed thrown over the middle, down the field (25) yards or so and even sideline passes, which should be money. The guy can jump through the roof, so throw him passes in the end zone! As BL has said, they wern’t on the SAME PAGE! One of the games where BL was used somewhat correctly, he had (10) catches for (190) yards, in addition to (30) yard pass interference call.
I think BL did have a little problem adjusting to Brady’s velocity on his throws, but he improved as the season went on. I also have to wonder how bad his KNEE was this year!
BL is a capable number one wide- receiver, if you have a solid number two wide- receiver on the other outside. I feel majority of the wide-out’s in the NFL would not succeed with Wes Welker on the team. Welker’s and Brady’s have a strong bond and I could see how this could cause animosity with a talented wr such as BL, because Brady depends too much on WW. There is also is Big Clicks in New England with the Media, Players and Fans. It was really a no win situation from day one for BL.
I would feel bad he would lose if money due by being released, but he statisically he will have a much better year with another team and his yards per catch will rise from 12.4 up to around 15 yards per catch.
It would be nice if the link to the Mike Reiss quote actually went to the specific column that it was quoted from. It only goes to his blog, which is of no use to those wishing to read the full article and get the full context.
Good point, John. I meant to, that was an omission on my part. I apologize.
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