Why is the offensive line to blame for everything? Edelman is having a great season why can’t are other WRs do the same, why do we have to wait for the OL to gel for them to be good? That just does not make sense to me, it seems like people are passing the buck to the weakest link.
Kontra nailed it pretty well a couple of posts later. Brady is sticking with his binkies, and that ain't good. Now, you have a point too - could Previous Brady read faster, throw faster, thread the ball through defenders when there's no open man? Maybe.
Does anybody have a complete list of targets through week 3? It's easy to find catches... I've bolded the receivers:
Wk 3
Edelman 10/84
LaFell 4/46
Gronk 3/44
Wright 1/20
Vereen 4/17
Thompkins 1/16
Ridley 1/7
So, 2 to Edelman for every 1 to anybody else, with Amendola and Dobson on the milk carton, in week 3.
Wk 2
Edelman 6/81
Gronk 4/32
Develin 2/17
Dobson 1/13
Hoomanetc. 1/6
Edelman ratio among receivers: 6:1. Clearly not a lot going to second reads here.
Wk 1 - we lost in wk 1. TFB got sacked and contacted a lot in wk. 1. This is important.
Edelman 6/95
Gronk 4/40
Thompkins 5/37
Vereen 5/35
Amendola sighting! 3/16
Wright 3/15
Ridley 2/7
Bolden 1/4
Edelman ratio: 6:8 among receivers (6 out of 14 receiver completions).
Now I know it's 3 different defenses, but the lesson from Miami if you're Tom Brady is don't hold onto the ball or you'll die (4 sacks - anybody know how many non-sack knockdowns?)
Like you say, I can't necessarily lay all this at the O-line's door. I see them lose their best pass protector, I see the line playing badly, and I see the outcome in week 1... and I wonder exactly what kind of masochistic son of a ***** would try to be a classic pocket passer in said circumstances, standing in there and progressing through his reads on the off chance that Dobson or Thompkins beat their guys (especially when he throws balls where he is assuming they'll zig and they're assuming he'll zag - we've seen at least one bad miscue like that, I believe Thompkins (?) wide open and likely to score, and the ball in the "wrong place," depending who you're asking.)
So what will this team bring on offense? What's the ceiling?
Probably higher than what we've seen thus far, unless the ultimate answer is (ominous music)... Brady has fallen off the cliff.
My main thought about the "cliff" argument is that we're not seeing a ton of interceptions. We're seeing 0 interception games, 1 TD, 250 yards passing... basically "game manager" numbers, not "can't judge the distance/no accuracy" numbers.
It's the ultimate team game, for sure. Chemistry could snap into place with Thompkins/Dobson/maybe even Amendola. The O line could get it together at some point. (God we miss ya Scar.) Or, maybe this Defense says "We want our own damn ring" like Baltimore in 2000. Or as some say without saying it, Brady's "cliff" is defined by his comparative immobility, in the face of an O-line which buys him less time. Do something superhuman or you're not Brady. Or, as others say, but it does not look like it to me, Brady is absolutely the worst quarterback evah and can't hit anybody except his binkies because he cannot throw to the sidelines or past 15 yards. At least they've stopped complaining that he throws the ball too hard for normal mortals to catch it, like they used to.
Just seems to me like it's time in the pocket that's missing. I'm not a smart football guy, just calling it as I see it.