mgteich

I didn't say "be ready to play by the playoffs".

My point is that I hope that Jackson is ready to "contribute" by the stretch run or at least by the playoffs. Why is this lunacy for an injured rookie wide receiver?

mgteich

I don't listen to the experts. I just don't have your optimism for the play of our wide receivers. The offense will be fine, even if Watson is our slot receiver and Faulk is the #4 receiver.

I jsut would be a lot happier with two legitimate starting receivers, which we don't have now. Knowing bb, we will have a decent set of receivers by the bye. We just don't know who will be a lot more productive than tonight.

BRANCH might sign, and might not, and might be healthy and a contributer in the playoffs or not.

I agree that JACKSON will be eventually be an outstanding receiver. How soon do you want to bring back your #1 receiver for the next five years after a hammy. Do you want to rush him back? I want him for the home stretch and the playoffs.

Ben Watson is the return of Ben Coates. That's great, but we still need wide receivers.

Troy Brown will be OK this year.

Caldwell has a history of dropping passes, especially when it counts.

Childress could get beat out by Stone or a waiver wire player.

shakadave

Interestingly, Stone was often in as part of our goal line offense, even in the first half!

__________________
Please, God, don't let us ever suck as bad as the 2011 Cowboys did in the Jets opener.
* * * * *
"I got a little shine on and showed you guys a little taste of my speed."

----Vince Wilfork, Jan. 7, 2007

SoonerPatriot

I could see where you might get confused. Jackson and Caldwell have caught roughly the same number of passes in pre-season games.

__________________
Celebrating the wonders of the ignore list.

jct

Nem is correct here.
Cadwell wasn't brought in with an expectation to be the #1 WR.
Branch will PROBABLY come back 90% chance (for all the games).
When Jackson gets on the field also that will stretch defenses more.
That would make all the WRs better.
Bottom line in Preseason we beat 2 teams 74-3 and we haven't put forth our best team yet.

Brady'sButtBoy

If we use the BB method and only talk about the players on the field then it could easily be said that we desperately need a quality WR. At some point sending RB's and TE's wide out isn't going to work as teams start to plan against us using that strategy. If teams shut down Watson, passing could become difficult. WRs get such big money because they almost can't be covered regardless of the defense. We need some of that downfield danger to keep the running lanes open and slow down the blitzes. As it stands presently Caldwell is nearly invisible and it would be dangerous to go into the season relying on Brown to be your main WR threat.

Brady is a megastar and not providing him with real weapons make little sense since the team wouldn't be fully utilizing its resources. Add Branch and Jackson to this squad and the Pats could vie to lead the league scoring, but those two aren't playing and we don't have any idea of how close they are to returning. So we can only go on what we see and that is this team needs a a threat at WR to fulfill is abilities and become extremely difficult to defense.

__________________
King of my matchbox sized world

p8ryts

mgteich, a little negative for you. Childress played and made a couple good catches. Troy Brown looks like 4 years ago.

I didn't even see Musinski or Stone in there. Kight was in but not thrown to.

Brown, Jackson, Caldwell, Childress and a player to be named later, that will work for me.

cstjohn17

The lack of top line NFL caliber WRs is a big concern. With Brady looking at his 2nd & 3rd options he takes a lot more hits. The O Line did a nice job last night but the extra time it takes in the check downs result in additional hits on the QB as he throws.

There may be a silver lining in that the offense is learning additional variety and will have a large selections of schemes to choose from depending on the coverages presented. In the end I would like to see Branch & Jackson at the top, Brown and Caldwell in the sub packages and an additional veteran brought in for the 5th spot (ideally someone with experience in returning kicks and \ or punts, I don't want to use Maroney all season as the KR because I think he is going to get 17 - 22 touches running the ball.)

With the offense clicking it really helps the defense, scoring first and then extending leads forces the other team play change up and modify their game plan. This was the formula for success in 2004 and should work in a similar manner this year. This strategy requires some top line receivers, if left as-is teams will adjust to defend the TEs and Brady will end up getting killed with all the check downs.

Go Pats, less than 2 weeks to kick-off.