Slow Your Roll on the Patriots WRs… There's a Long Way to Go

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Good thing Kraft has the copyright.

don't get the Thomas love, he's always been soft, declining numbers, older, and now coming off major surgery

Deus Irae said:

So your claim rests on your inability to grasp the meaning of a Bill Belichick statement about a player who was not in camp.


Think about that, then think about the rest of your "reasoning" on this. C'mon, man.

Other than Inman getting cut, the WR roster is the same. Gordon, Edelman, Thomas? Still players who were injured/suspended and will be coming back. Harry? Still a rookie who needs work? Meyers? Still a UDFA who looks great against backups in practices and scrimmages. Dorsett? Still the same guy who gets ignored or dismissed in most discussions about the WRs. The rest? Still a bunch of guys who are hoping to make the team when the odds would at least appear to be against them.

A lot has not changed. Almost nothing has changed.

It's almost all still the same.

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No, its all beautiful.

Have some more kool aid.

AndyJohnson said:

Harris can’t go on pup.

We have rarely maybe never kept 6.
“5 can turn into 2-3 real fast” isn’t a new thing.
We use 3 consistently a 4th sparingly and a 5th only in the event of injuries.

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The issue this year is that there’s too many of our 5 that have a dubious injury/reliability history.

Gordon could be suspended again in a few weeks for all we know.

D Thomas has been battling injuries, as has Harry, who also is a rookie.

Jakobi Myers looks great, but we should also pump the breaks and realize he’s an undrafted rookie himself.

Lastly, Edelman missed an entire season the year before, is 33 this year AND has had suspension in the past. (not that I expect him to get one again)

Too many question marks with this group, although in a vacuum it looks like a nice group. I understand we have some very tight numbers this year on the roster, but 6 true WR’s may be a good idea. I’d definitely try to keep Dorsett due to his familiarity with the offense.

We have a lot of kicks at the can this year. There are 7 guys who I can realistically see making the roster at the WR position, and we only need 4 to contribute regularly. Any beyond that are depth, and would often be inactive if the top 4 are healthy (and/or they don't play ST).

This guarantees nothing. But I feel good about the odds of this coaching staff identifying the right 4 for that role. I think our WR's are going to be better this year than they were in the Super Bowl, but let's be honest, that group wasn't the strength of the team last year, so saying that doesn't mean I think they're suddenly a top unit in the league (yet). I also expect our running backs to be better, with 2nd year Michel and Harris as depth.

The big question is going to be: Do the improvements in those areas make up for the HUGE downgrade at TE. And I don't mean that as a disparagement to our current TE's, just that Gronk is that unique. Watson will be a fine TE. We'll find 1 or 2 more who either are also fine or can at least block, and we'll be where 90% of the rest of the league is in terms of TE. But how good the WR's end up being will determine if that's enough.

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We usually have 7 game day active OL.

Joey007 said:

The issue this year is that there’s too many of our 5 that have a dubious injury/reliability history.

Gordon could be suspended again in a few weeks for all we know.

D Thomas has been battling injuries, as has Harry, who also is a rookie.

Jakobi Myers looks great, but we should also pump the breaks and realize he’s an undrafted rookie himself.

Lastly, Edelman missed an entire season the year before, is 33 this year AND has had suspension in the past. (not that I expect him to get one again)

Too many question marks with this group, although in a vacuum it looks like a nice group. I understand we have some very tight numbers this year on the roster, but 6 true WR’s may be a good idea. I’d definitely try to keep Dorsett due to his familiarity with the offense.

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I just don’t think it’s different than any other year. Players are always either young or old, previously injured or an injury risk.
If we really need to go 6 deep whether #6 is a jag we kept who is inactive all season or a jag we bring in it won’t make much difference.
Every position is 3 injuries or less away from finding a guy off the street.

sambam94 said:

don't get the Thomas love, he's always been soft, declining numbers, older, and now coming off major surgery

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Other than his rookie year, Thomas's worst year is better than Dorsett's best year, and typically (average year) is YPG is triple that of Dorsett.

Thomas has scored 124 touchdowns. Dorsett has 12.

Yes, last year was a bad year for Thomas. Played 15 games, traded mid-season from an offensive train-wreck (Denver) to another offensive train-wreck (Houston), where he was only getting targeted about 4.5 times a game. Watson threw like a third of all his passes at Hopkins - talk about being locked on one guy!

I get the Thomas hate (f*** Denver, his comment about not wanting to play a game at new England, his disappearance after Earl Thomas separated his head from his body at the beginning of the SB - he probably was walking around concussed after that), but come on, the guy 's been a stud receiver since his rookie year, he's a year-and-a-half younger than Edelman, who also had a catastrophic injury.

His declining numbers from last year are easy to understand - mid-season trade from a middling passing team to a team where Watson locks on Hopkins and no one else. He ain't dead yet.

Cautiously optimistic here that this guy is still an 800-900 yard receiver. It's all on the Achilles, I think, and it seems like more guys are coming back strong (both Sanders and Wynn look pretty good right now, for example) than in the recent past.

sambam94 said:

don't get the Thomas love, he's always been soft, declining numbers, older, and now coming off major surgery

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I’ve been saying that and getting torched by half the board. In his prime he was an athletic beast but he was always mentally soft, had bad hands, and now he’s old and banged up. The team obviously doesn’t have a ton of faith in him either as his guaranteed money is lower than what Jake Bailey will make this season.

sambam94 said:

don't get the Thomas love, he's always been soft, declining numbers, older, and now coming off major surgery

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Oh, and a "soft" NFL player doesn't play 16 games six years in a row, having the streak only broken last year (15 games).

203Pat said:

I’ve been saying that and getting torched by half the board. .

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Only half the board? We're slipping.

Thanks for letting us know you (obviously) have BB's ear or are psychic since you know what the team is thinking.

I would have thought it would be rare to find players without any injury history in this sport be it in college or the league. Taking a chance on players with injury history may work, are the pats any worse than other teams ?

Clonamery said:

Only half the board? We're slipping.

Thanks for letting us know you (obviously) have BB's ear or are psychic since you know what the team is thinking.

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If they’re so confident he’s going to contribute then why such a small amount of money guaranteed? Don’t exactly need to be psychic or have Bill’s ear to put two and two together (obviously).

203Pat said:

I’ve been saying that and getting torched by half the board. In his prime he was an athletic beast but he was always mentally soft, had bad hands, and now he’s old and banged up. The team obviously doesn’t have a ton of faith in him either as his guaranteed money is lower than what Jake Bailey will make this season.

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Your comments about the pats always breaking g the rules and now this stuff on Thomas is laughable . Thomas”s career pisses on josh Gordon’s. He may be done with this injury. But some of you guys have no idea what you are talking about

Bruins29 said:

Your comments about the pats always breaking g the rules and now this stuff on Thomas is laughable . Thomas”s career pisses on josh Gordon’s. He may be done with this injury. But some of you guys have no idea what you are talking about

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I guess I should just start chugging the Kool-Aid to reach your level of insight on the team.

What does Gordon have to do with anything I said?

203Pat said:

I guess I should just start chugging the Kool-Aid to reach your level of insight on the team.

What does Gordon have to do with anything I said?

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When are you going to list the rules that the patriots broke?

Bruins29 said:

When are you. Going to list the rule that the patriots broke?

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Okay ignore my question and ask your own.

You can get as mad as you want about it but technically the Patriots broke the rules when they had a camera filming from an unapproved location. Was it an incredibly overblown incident? Yes. Were other teams (Jets) doing the same exact thing? Yes. Was it still technically against the rules? Yes.

It’s one of the many innocuous, nonsensical rules that get bent or broken on a weekly basis by almost every team every year. To say that teams don’t do what they can to circumvent the rules is naive.

203Pat said:

If they’re so confident he’s going to contribute then why such a small amount of money guaranteed? Don’t exactly need to be psychic or have Bill’s ear to put two and two together (obviously).

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Then just say, I think or I believe...not hard. Any player at that age coming off a major injury would likely get small to no guaranteed money...confidence or doubt has nothing to do with it. It's seems like a typical prove it deal.

203Pat said:

It’s one of the many innocuous, nonsensical rules that get bent or broken on a weekly basis by almost every team every year. To say that teams don’t do what they can to circumvent the rules is naive.

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Sources? Data? Film at 11? What you got? Anything? Buehler? Buehler? Goodell's got an Article 46 in his pants just busting to get out!

203Pat said:

Okay ignore my question and ask your own.

You can get as mad as you want about it but .

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Compare Thomas’s soft career to Gordon’s. It shouldn’t be difficult . Several posters have chimes in on your statement already :

Who isn’t mad about the way the patriots have been singled out . Well. I guess you aren’t because you seem to imply they got what they deserved .

Bruins29 said:

Compare Thomas’s soft career to Gordon’s. It shouldn’t be difficult . Several posters have chimes in on your statement already :

Who isn’t mad about the way the patriots have been singled out . Well. I guess you aren’t because you seem to imply they got what they deserved .

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I still don’t know what my post has to do with Gordon.

As for the rules stuff I’m not one of the holier than thou fans but I’m not going to sit here and say that “deflategate” wasn’t a complete witch-hunt. I’m also not going to go down this rabbit hole because in the end of the day I don’t think anything the Patriots have done is any worse than any other team. I think deflategate was Goodell getting a “make up call” and tried to drop the hammer on us to make up for the perception amongst the 31 other fan bases that he went easy on us for Spygate. So you can unbunch your panties now.