Lack Of Faith in 2013 Wide Receivers

Supposedly, the WR position was addressed in 2013 with a 2nd round pick, a 4th round pick, with a quality UDFA and with acquisition of Amendola.

Boyce is on the Practice Squad.

Dobson is inactive for the 3rd time.

Thompkins is inactive for the second time.

Amendola and LaFell are clearly our #2 and #3 WR's, in either order, even with their minimal production so far. Believe it or not, we will learn to be happy that we have LaFell and Amendola. LaFell should be OK in giving us 2-4 catches a game, his career norm. What we need is Amendola to step us as a slot receiver, which may be possible with Gronk more and more a factor in the offense.

I'm quickly starting to lose faith in Amendola. Somehow, he looks slower than he did in 2013. LaFell just needs time to get acclimated. The Dobson scratch confuses me, assuming he's healthy.

mgteich said:

Supposedly, the WR position was addressed in 2013 with a 2nd round pick, a 4th round pick, with a quality UDFA and with acquisition of Amendola.

Boyce is on the Practice Squad.

Dobson is inactive for the 3rd time.

Thompkins is inactive for the second time.

Amendola and LaFell are clearly our #2 and #3 WR's, in either order, even with their minimal production so far. Believe it or not, we will learn to be happy that we have LaFell and Amendola. LaFell should be OK in giving us 2-4 catches a game, his career norm. What we need is Amendola to step us as a slot receiver, which may be possible with Gronk more and more a factor in the offense.

Click to expand...

Does inactive mean "loss of faith" or a specific game plan?

LaFell clearly has a role that the coaching staff values that other receivers can't do in terms of (1) blocking, (2) receiving over the middle and a TE-like role, and (3) special teams. That seems to be enough for BB and Josh McD to give him a spot ahead of Thompkins and Dobson (who may not be fully healthy). Beyond that, they have decided to activate James White, who was a healthy scratch for the first 3 games of the season, suggesting that they want to use 2-back sets and receivers out of the background against the Chiefs and more of a short passing game. This would make sense given KC's pass rush capability and the questions around the offensive line, which might make it harder for more vertical receivers to get open.

Everything that you say may in fact be correct, but I'm not sure that we can make definitive conclusions from the active game day roster for a given game.

how much longer are we going to do the "game plan" thing?

You don't see other teams with healthy scratches. thompkins has looked good, dobson has looked good. why are they not playing?

I don't think this is the case, i think the OL struggles and changes have really put a focus on running the ball and rather than go spread more than half the time they are going with two WR's, and LaFell's ST and blocking ability as well as Amendola's blocking ability made them the choice over Dobson and Thompkins, who offer nothing in either area. I think they are still working on their offensive fundamentals and we will continue to see this kind of offense until they can run the ball and protect Brady with just their starting OL and not packages designed to cover for those weaknesses. they are going to have to walk before they run and that's why the offense looks so bad.

Imo Dobson, Thompkins, and Amendola will all see more opportunities as they get it together but right now Amendola is basically a back-up to Edelman and the other two inactive. if they get the OL together I think we will see more from all of them.

Disappointed in Dobson and Thompkins. Was truly expecting to see this 2nd year leap

patriot1136 said:

Disappointed in Dobson and Thompkins. Was truly expecting to see this 2nd year leap

Click to expand...

Hard to see a second year leap when they're not really being given a second year

Ivan said:

I don't think this is the case, i think the OL struggles and changes have really put a focus on running the ball and rather than go spread more than half the time they are going with two WR's, and LaFell's ST and blocking ability as well as Amendola's blocking ability made them the choice over Dobson and Thompkins, who offer nothing in either area.

Click to expand...

While your analysis makes sense (I thought the same thing) in terms of only having 3 WRs available and 5 RBs available last night, they chose to come out with 3 straight throws to go three-and-out to start the game....again.....against a piss poor run defense....just the same as last week.

Sometimes I think BB has been drinking too much of his own kool-aid. Thompkins, who at times played very well last year, has suddenly become so useless he can't even get on the field? Dobson, who had a better rookie season than the beloved Deion Branch, sore foot or no foot can't manage to be better than the invisible Amendola? I just don't believe it. It's virtually impossible that both of them have no practical value. BB has some kind of axe to grind with those two. And while it seems equally as implausible that BB would be so caught up in his own unreasonably biased world as to do something to prevent the success of the team just to make his point known to everyone, I just don't buy that the potential and ability shown by Dobson and Thompkins has suddenly vanished.

Amendola has to be dead last in the NFL for the amount of snaps v. production. He's worse than Ochocinco, just terrible.

Edelman WR1
A low ceiling WR2 as our WR2 in Lafell
The worst WR3 in the NFL in Amendola
Our All-pro TE is a shadow of himself

Not sure why keep DA around, he has little upside and little production now.

Might as well keep some upside and hope it develops.

Edelman, LaFell, Dobson, Thompkins, Tyms, Boyce are the ones I'd keep. And I'd probably activate Boyce from PS to not lose him. OK, he struggled but WR is about upside for me at this point.

Oh - and I would play them too.

Does it really matter? The O-line is not exactly giving Brady time to look beyond his first (Edelman) and second (vereen or Gronk) options. Does it truly matter who is the third or fourth options with defensive linemen coming through our turnstyle Oline?

supafly said:

While your analysis makes sense (I thought the same thing) in terms of only having 3 WRs available and 5 RBs available last night, they chose to come out with 3 straight throws to go three-and-out to start the game....again.....against a piss poor run defense....just the same as last week.

Click to expand...

And when they do run, it's Vereen instead of the best runner they have, Ridley, getting the ball. It doesn't need to be so cute every game. Line up and let your workhorses do some damage. Ridley can get the tough yards, Vereen cannot. Deactivating Thompkins and Dobson then spreading them out just boggles my mind. I thought we'd be looking at around 35 rush attempts last night when I saw the inactive list. I was clearly way off.

I'm really looking forward to Tyms. That may be pretty sad, but Dobson and Tyms on the outside and see what happens. Get Amendola out and replace him with KT/Tim Wright.

mayoclinic said:

Does inactive mean "loss of faith" or a specific game plan?

Click to expand...

then blame the game plan or whoever lost the faith

this team did OK last year, and the same targets are all there......so what's changed?

for starters, the pats have yet to try to increase the pace....no hurry up, no no huddle......why? why can't they do exactly what they were doing last year? not even try?

this is the one thing that tells me that there is something else in the background that has the pats reasoning their offense the way it is now........the quality of targets is at least equal to what they had when they won an SB in 2001. They're just simply not adapting to 'whatever works' they could dink and dunk all day long if they wanted to

PATS16N0 said:

Hard to see a second year leap when they're not really being given a second year

Click to expand...

This is exactly what it is. Nothing more needs to be said. Two guys in their rookie years that showed they were getting have been put on the shelf for Amendola and a ST only player in Don Jones.

Amendola seriously needs to get a season ending injury right now but he won't, he'll stay healthy all season and do nothing.

Honestly though with how Ghost is on kickoffs and how well Allen is punting do you really need another ST only player in friggen Don Jones? Ya Don Jones play on ST is so much more important than having Thompkins or Dobson out there.

fumbrunner said:

Does it really matter? The O-line is not exactly giving Brady time to look beyond his first (Edelman) and second (vereen or Gronk) options. Does it truly matter who is the third or fourth options with defensive linemen coming through our turnstyle Oline?

Click to expand...

Brady had plenty of time to throw last night, it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been. He got whacked later when it was obvious he had to throw but Brady wasn't sharp at all when he had the time he needed and more. On his first INT he had all day and still tossed an awful pass. It wasn't on the o-line last night.

If the coaching staff doesnt have faith in those WRs, then fine. But run the damn ball then. Last night was an atrocious game plan.

LaFell has improved every week and now is the #2 receiver. Perhaps, someone will step up and he will be the #3 or #4. In any case, we now have two productive wide receivers. We also have Gronk and Vereen. We need another passing option.

LaFell was acquired for a reason. Some (rather silly) posters thought that he was competing for the 5th WR spot. Others thought that he was a lock because of the money paid, but still was a blocker and #5 receiver.

The first quarter of the season is over. We need Gronk healthier. LaFell will get even better as he learns more of the playbook.
============
The open question: What should be the role be for Amendola, Thompkins and Dobson. Obviously, Dobson gets a bit of a pass because he is indeed talented and is still recovering from an injury. Will Tyms be activated so that we have 4 question marks instead of three? We all have our binkies, but just having these players active isn't enough. They have to be able to get open and to produce. That is seriously in question.

For me, Amendola seems to be a backup to Edelman and could be inactive in that role, with someone active instead.

Brady'sButtBoy said:

Brady had plenty of time to throw last night, it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been. He got whacked later when it was obvious he had to throw but Brady wasn't sharp at all when he had the time he needed and more. On his first INT he had all day and still tossed an awful pass. It wasn't on the o-line last night.

Click to expand...

Hali got the jump on the one really bad sack. Other than that, the OL played pretty week against a solid defensive front.