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(PHOTO: Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports) Heading into this offseason, the New England Patriots clearly need to improve offensively as they try and bounce back from a frustrating 2022 season.
One of those first dominoes is about to fall in the coming days, and how things shake out with Jakobi Meyers will likely be a deciding factor into how they approach free agency.
As it currently stands, reports say that the club will allow Meyers to test the market and then hopefully give them a chance to make a final offer to keep him in the fold.
The biggest question will then be his worth, which is going to be difficult to gauge given the explosion in recent years salary-wise for that position.
Most seem to believe that the team’s most productive wideout should at least fall somewhere near the $11 million to $13 million range, which is essentially right near Nelson Agholor’s price tag after he signed here back in 2021, agreeing to a two-year, $26 million deal that offseason.
The production certainly didn’t match his contract. Agholor’s had half the number of receptions as his teammate the last couple of seasons, with Meyers instead being the Patriots’ most productive offensive weapon over that span.
As a result, clearly, Meyers has earned whatever raise he’s about to receive. He’s more than outperformed the restricted free-agent tender he signed last June, and has had over 800 yards receiving in each of the past two seasons, which led the team.
Now the only question is going to be how other teams potentially view him, and whether or not he would be as productive in another offense.
The sentiment among most pundits is that other teams see him as a solid player in a great system, but not necessarily a game-breaker. That’s certainly a fair assessment, as Meyers’s value is definitely appreciated a little more here given the type of player he is.
His relationship with quarterback Mac Jones is also well-documented, with the two obviously having great chemistry both on and off the field. Losing him would definitely make things a little more difficult for Jones, who is heading into what’s essentially about to be the most critical season of his NFL career.
The Patriots clearly have to add a more explosive player to this group, which at the same time could make Meyers even better since you could sort of put him into the same category as Danny Amendola.
On his own, Amendola was a good player but paired with Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski, he became a player who thrived while other guys were garnering that attention. The same could be said for Meyers, who has come up big in other situations, albeit surrounded by lesser talent than Amendola.
Whether or not Meyers sticks around long enough for them to get better around him is clearly a big question this offseason. For a team that already can’t really afford to take any steps backward, hopefully, both sides can structure a deal to keep him in the mix for the foreseeable future.
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