No disrespect taken. Just so you know, prior to you joining here, I had stats and a prediction about Julian Edelman in my signature. Many laughed at me, and predicted that he wouldn't even make it out of camp again. I was one of his bigger supporters, who even brought up a thread exploring the possibility of trading Wes Welker while his value was still at its highest prior to his last season here, since I did not believe for one second that we would franchise him 2 years in a row, and felt that if he were going to stay we'd have likely signed him by the beginning of 2012.
This is nothing about disliking Julian Edelman, nor being more fond of Danny Amendola. I simply don't believe in attempting to judge after one year where Amendola was nothing near the focal point of the receiving game, such as Julian Edelman was.
I know you like Edelman and didn’t mean to imply otherwise. The difference Edelman had a limited sample size coming into this season having been targeted just 60 times in the previous 3 seasons (32 of which came last season) and 112 times in his career. Amendola on the other hand 293 times career despite playing in 15 less games.
They’ve both played in 5 NFL season:
Edelman – 69 games, 273 targeted, 183 receptions, 67% reception ratio, 1845 receiving yards, 10.08 average, 95 first downs, 13 receiving touchdowns, 114 punt returns, 1422 punt return yards, 12.47 average and 3 return touchdowns.
Amendola – 54 games, 376 targeted, 250 receptions, 66% reception ration, 2359 receiving yards, 9.4 average, 133 first downs, 9 receiving touchdowns, 90 punt returns, 947 punt return yards, 10.5 average and 0 return touchdowns.
The way I see it Edelman catches more balls that go for more yardage, more first downs and more touchdowns than Amendola in the passing game, and returns punts for more yards and more touchdowns in the punt return game. I cannot wrap my head around the Amendola being better than Edelman.
Amendola led the NFL in kick return yardage and was top 3 in punt return yardage in just his rookie season, also catching 43 balls. The next full year he went on to catch 85 passes, so let's not act like he's never had a "good year," or that Julian Edelman totally blew him away. Any receiver who typically catches 50-60 balls a year while missing time is going to be taken a lot more seriously than a guy who had totals of 37, 7, 4, and 21. There's no "hope" involved aside from hoping that Amendola (and Edelman) both stay healthy. It just so happens that Belichick felt that using Edelman in the slot as our primary quick passing target was best for the team this past season...nothing more.
I never said Amendola has not had a good year but he has never had more than 689 receiving yards in a season, he averages under 10 yards per receptions in his career and is still in single digits for career touchdowns. Another overlooked factor is that Amendola entered the NFL as a wide receiver and Edelman entered as a college QB who converted to wide receiver. Edelman’s first season he played 12 games, he was targeted 62 for 43 receptions totaling 403 receiving yards, 23 first downs and 3 touchdowns; Amendola played in 14 games, he was targeted 63 times for 43 receptions totaling 326 receiving yards, 20 first downs and 1 touchdown. Edelman was a more productive player than Amendola from day 1, he was then buried behind Wes Welker, the return of Deion Branch and the integration of the 2 tight end offense. With Welker at the Z-WR, Branch at the Y-WR and then Gronkowski and Hernandez also playing the underneath and intermediate passing game the only opportunity other than backup would have been at the X-WR where Edelman would not have be very good. In that time Edelman did continue to return punts better than anyone in the history of the NFL (average) and played a very important role as a nickel and dime CB in 2011 that helped this team get to the Super Bowl.
All you're doing is making the exact same argument with Amendola as many of Edelman's doubters did with him. He had one good year in 5 NFL seasons, and that was under our dire circumstances here at the WR position. As a whole, you know darn well that Amendola has been more reliable and productive than Edelman has throughout their careers. You are basing your entire debate and judgement off of one season that showed us some of the most dire circumstances that we've seen at the WR position in many, many years here in N.England.
I really am not making the same argument though, Edelman was not receiving reps at all in 2010 and 2011; it had little to do with injuries as many suggest it had to with Wes Welker, Randy Moss, Chad Johnson, Deion Branch, Rob Gronkowski, Brandon Tate, Taylor Price and Aaron Hernandez all being integrated or attempting to integrate them into our offense. Welker seldom if ever came off the field, Branch also seldom came off in 2010 and 2011, they used Hernandez as a WR a lot in both 2010 and 2011, they had Moss at the X-WR initially when he was traded they attempted to fill that position with the likes of Tate, Price, Johnson and Lloyd. It was not until 2012 when the Patriots started using Edelman at the Y-WR instead of the older Branch that he was seeing any WR reps and even then they were limited most weeks.
Amendola has been a starter for the better part of his career, he had the #1 slot in training camp, in the preseason, in week 1 and again when he returned from injury at midseason, Edelman led the team in receptions as the 4th/5th receiver in the preseason, scored 2 touchdowns in week 1 and consistently outperformed Amendola throughout the 2013 season. The doubters of Edelman built their beliefs his lack of presence, which has not been the case for Danny as I said in his 5 NFL seasons he has had the opportunity to be a top 1-3 target on his team each season.
I'm sure not that there are too many here aside from yourself who don't think that's possible. All you have to do is look at the difference in targets this season, where Edelman had more than 150+ targets. Did Amendola even get 1/2 of that number?
Amendola was targeted 83 times in 12 games in which he played 48% of the snaps, so playing half the game Amendola was targeted on average 7 times per contest, Edelman was targeted 151 times in 16 games in which he played 86% of the snaps, so he played almost the entire game and was targeted on average 9 times a contest. It is not exactly as if Edelman received so much more opportunity than Amendola, the case could actually be made on a per rep basis Amendola was receiving more balls in his direction.
If you want to say target a player 151 times and they can do this well than I guess I would target Vereen 151 times because he is going to catch more balls and score more touchdowns than Danny, or target Dobson, Thompkins or Boyce 151 times because they’re going to gain more receiving yards and score more touchdowns than Danny. That was is somewhat flawed.
Rotoworld.com puts the situation into perspective very nicely with their fantasy report from week #17:
"Buried behind Julian Edelman in the slot, Amendola enters the postseason as a part-time player."
There's absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that Danny Amendola isn't going to produce anything more than 54 catches during his time here as a Patriot. Assignments and responsibilities change from season to season, along with the personnel that we have to play at the position itself. Edelman got the call to be our focal point this season, and Amendola may very well get that same call next year. If not, he'll have to hope that he turns those 54 catches into about 70-75 or so, or his situation will be addressed at some point in the next couple of seasons.
The thing is Sup is he was not buried behind Edelman, he was actually ahead of him throughout training camp and preseason and upon his return he was given the starting role back over Edelman. His ineffectiveness in the first half of the Broncos game led to Edelman reassuming the lead dog role. In the Bengals, Dolphins (@), Steelers and Panthers game Amendola had more targets than Edelman during midseason, the team made an attempt to let Amendola prove he was the superior player to Edelman.
