Agree 100%. With that said in the playoffs Brady should only throw to Gronk, Cooks, Hogs (health), MM (health), White, DLew, Burk and DA. He should only throw to Allen, Britt and Dorsett when absolutely necessary as they are the last options.
With defenses more or less cheating up on Gronk and Cooks, it seems to me that designing a play or three for Dorsett would be desirable. If defenses are forced to respect his presence more, then they're stretched. Same with Allen an, to some degree, with Britt (although I think defenses may respect him already, based on his prior history in the league.
Saying, "released by the Browns" makes me think you have a bias against him? That organization is a **** show. I have zero confidence in its ability to evaluate talent and learn what makes a player tick.
Bingo!
The decoy route argument is hollow to me. Brady throws to players a) who have a play designed for them in the progression and b) he trusts. I don't think either happens for Dorsett here. For whatever reason, he is not a part of the offense.
On the one hand, some posters seem to be arguing that defenses pay scant attention to Dorsett "because Brady doesn't even look his way". Other posters seem to be arguing that Dorsett "decoys" coverage away from (presumably) Cooks. Obviously, both can't be true on the same play.
We've seen the tape and screen shots of Dorsett being wide open without Brady seeing him (for whatever reason), but it seems highly unlikely to me that it's deliberate on Brady's part - that would be insane. And we've also seen Brady overlook Amendola and Hogan being wide open. It happens.
It seems reasonable to guess that Brady and McD have had some discussions about this subsequent to their little sideline kerfluffle. The solution it seems to me, is to practice some specific plays with Dorsett as an earlier read in the progression. If defenses really aren't paying close attention to Dorsett, he only has to burn a defense once for a long TD to fix that. And we know that Dorsett has already burned at least a couple of defense for long gains between the 20s.
Here is what really concerns me about Britt.
I think Britt has a little of Blount and Dillon in him. If he is in a losing, uncomfortable environment he shuts down, gets distracted and does dumb things. He was erratic in TN. He was erratic in STL/LA (and still had a 1000yd year). He melted down in CLE. To your point he had structure at Rutgers. Its a big unknown if at 29 he can embrace the culture here and allow his ability to be maximized.
Well put.
At the end of the day I believe he is more proven as a WR in the NFL and a more physically-gifted athlete than Dorsett. Plus hes more of a goal line threat (run and catch) than Dorsett.
It may be with only a few weeks to learn the offense is unrealistic to think he can do what Dorsett does not but if we are talking about decoy plays with 0% chance of getting the ball, choosing Britt over Dorsett seems like a better option.
Britt is 5" taller and about 35 lbs heftier than either Cooks or Dorsett (and no doubt has better upper-body strength), so, yeah, he
should be a better goal-line/redzone option for catches in heavy traffic.
All three put up really good Combine numbers. However, Britt is now nearly 9 years removed from those numbers while Dorsett posted his not quite three years ago. So, aside from the size difference, I'm not sure I'd agree that there's a huge difference in athletic gifts right now.
Neither Britt nor Dorsett is going to be an effective decoy unless they're targeted more often and established as legitimate regular threats to be covered. Dorsett has already broken off four pretty good chunk plays between the 20s, but Britt probably needs a couple goal-line/redzone targets to establish himself in those situations - and time is running out on that.
