Idle thoughts - the broken record edition

[patfanken]

Sure, everything is fine until one of Edelman or LaFell gets injured, which is where the subject of depth concern comes in.

We can all agree that Amendola is providing neither production or value as the WR3. He's failing terribly at both, even though I'd love to keep him on a cheap deal maybe one more year for depth/special teams purposes.

Everyone else is basically in the developmental stage (Dobson, Boyce, Tyms), or isn't really an actual wide receiver but simply plays on special teams (Slater).

That's now FIVE wide receivers behind Edelman/LaFell who really don't do a damn thing. Sure, we need to have a developmental guy or two (along with ST), but the object would be to reduce the number from five to maybe two or three--at most.

This might be (the highlighted sentence) the most unfair and unreasonable statement I've seen from you since I've started following your posts. Failed? At what exactly has Danny Amendola failed at? When you you play about a quarter of the snaps and are the 5th option when you do play, how many catches do you think ANY receiver would catch.

But here's what we DO know. In the one game where Amendola became the #3 option and the primary punt and KO returner, he rewarded his team with over 200 yds of production, and could have had a lot more if not for a penalty. As a receiver he gave us pretty much exactly what we would expect from Edelman.(about 8 catches and 70yds)

I can remember having these long battles with posters over comments like this, only instead of Amendola, the name was Edleman. He was another guy who was didn't put up impressive numbers for 3 years, but did OK whenever he got his opportunities. The same goes for Amendola, in the 2 games of his Patriots career when he happened to be one of the primary focuses of the offense, he's "passed", not failed.

Its fine to complain about his contract, or his injuries last season. But I'm very confident that if you asked BB if Danny Amemdola has done the job be's be asked to do this season, he'd give you a resounding
"Yes". Now that doesn't mean he's not going to ask him to take a pay cut this off season, but.....

 

[Fencer]

A big problem in evaluating Amendola is that if you look at salaries and so on, there are about 4 receivers who "should" be producing roughly equally -- Edelman, LaFell, Amendola, and Gronk, if we accept that Gronk is by far the best player among those, but is a blocker a significant fraction of the time. Gronk, Edelman and LaFell indeed have fairly similar stats (in declining order), but Amendola's aren't remotely comparable. Instead, he's the 6th leading receiver on the team, with numbers that look pathetic compared to the weakest of the top three (LaFell). http://espn.go.com/nfl/team/stats/_/name/ne/new-england-patriots

 

[DarrylS]

The whole WR deep threat imo is one of those "shiny beads" things, it would be nice but is it necessary, particularly as we need to allocate cash on Revis/McCourty et al??

It would be a nice pleasure, but how many have cycled through here and not adapted to the way the Pats Offense operates?? There is nothing wrong with the offense that cannot be fixed if they slow down the pass rush...

IMO this team needs to develop and vary its offense, most of the receptions are by the top 4 and the rest either are in the "no confidence" camp or do not have the necessary skills to play in the NFL.. if memory serves me correctly Tyms has 6 targets and one reception, when he is in there the play calling is predictable. Why not use him on short routes and give him the chance to use his speed??

When they signed Amendola he became redundant as Edelman developed into something they did not expect.. his contract will be reworked.

I am in the camp of letting them develop and searching for alternatives that are jettisoned by other teams, but signing a "big name" NFL WR does not seem to be in the cards..

 

[Ivan]

Ken, I defended Amendola as forcefully as anyone here but he has "failed" to live up to his contract. And while I agree with you n on the context and extenuating circumstances when you get paid as much as he has been to play then it is up to n you n to win the job and earn your money, he didn't so that's on him and no one else. That said I agree that releasing him prior to this offseason would have been idiotic, and that he has been a valuable contributor to them this season and provides excellent depth. However I would still try b to reach a new deal with him at much lower cost and release him mm outright if he doesn't do it. In all likelihood I think he will play elsewhere next season.

 

[New England Pride]

I thought that the original Randy wanted to rejoin the Pats.

Lmao the 1998 version right?

 

[AzorianPats]

Well, there's a really good one coming up in the draft, one who plays in a system very similar to new England's already. Having said that, there's not a very good chance that the Patriots could be in a position to draft Amari Cooper. I've watched him play for 3 years now, and he's gotten better with each game. He's consistent, and can & will go and get a ball if it comes close to him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amari_Cooper

Gweed, in your opinion who was the better prospect coming out of college, Julio Jones or Amari Cooper?