Let's hope Dante can get the middle of the O-line up to the task of protecting Brady.
Yep. That was - and still is - the key for this offense. They have top quality players at every other position except center. If Karras can even be league average, that's probably good enough for this offense to be just insanely good.
I would say we ought to hold off on expecting Brown himself to put up monster numbers. They now have three GREAT receivers, but still only one ball. AND they are still a power running team and I suspect they'd rather not have Brady take the number of hits that comes with dropping back 40 times a game.
So what I expect to see is incredible *efficiency*. I expect this team to be able to score tons but without Brady throwing a million times a game. Honestly....
WR Brown
WR Gordon
WR Edelman
TE Watson
RB White
They run that formation, and how are defenses going to stop it? Even Watson is a pretty terrific pass-catcher. He's not Gronk, but he's really good still. The last two seasons, Watson's catch rate has been 77.2% and 76.1%. For comparison's sake:
Gronk: 65.7% and 65.3%
Kelce: 68.0% and 68.7%
Hooper: 75.4% and 80.1%
Rudolph: 70.4% and 78.8%
So Watson has been among the best TEs in the NFL in terms of catch rate, which means that when he gets one-on-one coverage, which he most certainly will, he usually wins those battles, three out of four times. And he's the WORST pass-catching option of that group of five up there. We saw in the Super Bowl what Edelman does to single coverage. Brown simply cannot be covered with one guy. Neither can Gordon. And White would have to be covered by a slow linebacker. OMG I'm speechless.
