JoeSixPat said:
Yeah NEM - not another word out of you until you can show that the offense isn't performing well... like, hypothetically, if Brady and his receiving corps had the worst completion rate in the NFL.
Hey, the passing offense hasn't been working well consistently. We all know that. We all know that we had 80% turnover at the WR position too. That's a REASON for the low completion percentage, not an EXCUSE.
I see so many people bashing the passing game, but no one is actually looking at WHY it should be better.
Why should it be any better than it is? I think it's far overperformed what I expected, but some of you are disappointed and even angry, so tell me WHY it should be doing better.
We lost our #1 WR, Our #2 WR, our #4 WR, our #5 WR and our #6 WR.
We kept only our #3 WR from last season in Troy Brown. He's now playing #1 in our offense.
We signed a bargain bin guy in Caldwell who had never even been considered a solid starter, much less a marquee player.
We traded a 5th round pick for another bargain player that has potential but has never capitalized on it in Gabriel.
We drafted a ROOKIE WR in the second round in Chad Jackson.
And in the bye week we signed another castoff at a bargain price in Gaffney.
We signed ZERO marquee players. We retained zero marquee players. And we drafted one possible marquee player, but then we all know not to expect much from Rookie WRs.
On top of that you factor in that both Gabriel and Jackson had less than 3 weeks of TC time
combined, and that Gaffney was not here for even the first 5 games, much less TC. Factor in further the fact that both Gabriel and Jackson missed time due to injuries and Jackson at least has yet to play at 100% all season long and then tell me:
Why should we expect more than what has occured?
I expected less. Reality suggested that less was likely. Yet the offense has moved the ball and scored points. The 8-3 TD/INT ratio is one of the better ratios in the league.
I think the disappointment, and subsequent call for RESULTS or EXCUSES, is stemmed from an unrealistic view of the situation, and an unrealistic expectation of the WR position.
We lost long-time WRs that knew what was going on, replaced them with bargain bin signings and now the passing game is struggling yet still having enough success to win.
Many teams would implode. The Pats have not. We're 4-1.
If Brandon Stokely was the only WR left for Peyton, and they replaced Marvin and Wayne by promoting Stokely to #1 and signing budget players to fill out the roster along with a 2nd round rookie would Manning still be lighting up the league?
Manning has nearly identical stats to Brady's THIS SEASON while he still HAS Marvin and Wayne.
Please, someone tell me WHY it should be better than it is, I cannot for the life of me figure out how it should be.