The Herd: "Brady may be at fault for Pats' WR woes"

Do yourselves a favor and have a look at the Titans WR Brown's stats for his first 6 games.

They were positively very N'Kealharryish.

Brown caught fire the 2nd half of the season.

Harry was hurt half the year, and only played 6 or 7 games.

TheAdultintheRoom said:

Let's say for argument's sake he has a point and Brady's strength is quick passes between the numbers. Given that, why would you enter the season with no TE and draft a big, slow outside receiver?

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Been saying that all year. If they meant to continue their twitch offense, why Harry? Why Demaryous Thomas?

Deebo? Mecole?

For the record, I agree with this take and have for a while (not the Brady retirement part). Pittsburgh keeps finding WRs because of Ben Rothlisberger. Seattle, because of Wilson. It matters.

Patriots' receivers don't get separation because they have less time to get it.

Brady likes clairvoyants at WR.

And I guarantee you the young WR’s want Brady gone.

50-yard-line said:

Been saying that all year. If they meant to continue their twitch offense, why Harry? Why Demaryous Thomas?

Deebo? Mecole?

For the record, I agree with this take and have for a while (not the Brady retirement part). Pittsburgh keeps finding WRs because of Ben Rothlisberger. Seattle, because of Wilson. It matters.

Patriots' receivers don't get separation because they have less time to get it.

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I posted above how much I disagree with him on this. The Patriots rookie busts have done nothing when they left New England. Boyce, Jackson, Price, Tate, Dobson, Sam, Johnson, etc.

Yet we've seen success with Mitchell, Branch & Givens. They're 3 out of 10.

As for Pittsburgh, Antonio Brown could play anywhere, and Emmanuel Sanders too, Hines Ward, Santonio Holmes, and I'm sure JuJu would be just as good elsewhere too. These guys are not products of Roethlisberger's abilities. If anything, they make Roethlisberger look better than he really is.

The big difference is the amount of draft capital expended, and scouting. Check out the early drafts the last decade:

Steelers WRs:
2019: 3rd Johnson
2018: 2nd Washington
2017: 2nd Smith-Schuster
2015: 2nd Sammie Coates
2014: 3rd Dri Archer, 3rd Bryant
2013: 3rd Wheaton
2010: 3rd Emanuel Sanders

8 picks in the first 3 rounds.

Compare to the Patriots:
2019: 1st Harry
2013: 2nd Dobson
2010: 3rd Price

For the Steelers, that's one guy taken in the first two rounds every year the last 3 years. The Patriots have taken only Harry in the first 3 rounds in the entire last 6 years, and he was hurt half the year.

The Steelers expended so many picks, they could afford to bust on Archer and Coates.

When the Patriots went bust on Dobson and Price, they had no youth in the pipeline.

I wonder what the OL rankings are for the teams he mentioned vs. NEP

Pats #2 in drops so I blame the droppers a lot. It's not 2007 Brady anymore, but that's terrible.

Ice_Ice_Brady said:

The source is a giant Brady fanboy, so I will consider it more likely to be a Genuine opinion.

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Colin is a huge Pats/Brady fan, no doubt.

sean10mm said:

Pats #2 in drops so I blame the droppers a lot. It's not 2007 Brady anymore, but that's terrible.

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This deserves to be said more. Drops very visibly cost us in the Wild Card game, but they're often drive killers. I wonder how many of these drops were on third down?

Pundit after pundit....Chatham, Ted Johnson,Phil Perry, Orlovsky...have pointed out play after play after play where Brady eschews a wide open Myers, Sanu, Dorsett, LaCosse to force the ball to a covered edelman or White. Brady was not good this year, and if you think he was you're not being honest w yourself

FCB02062 said:

Pundit after pundit....Chatham, Ted Johnson,Phil Perry, Orlovsky...have pointed out play after play after play where Brady eschews a wide open Myers, Sanu, Dorsett, LaCosse to force the ball to a covered edelman or White. Brady was not good this year, and if you think he was you're not being honest w yourself

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It was a real mixed bag with him, though. Meyers, LaCosse and Harry struggled mightily understanding the offense and often weren't where they were supposed to be on their routes timing-wise. Edelman, Dorsett and Sanu were hampered by injury. Brady also was fighting injuries affecting his accuracy. Without question he forced too many balls to covered guys but it's hard telling how much of that was on him and how much was on the receivers. It also is possible Brady didn't throw to guys that appeared open on film because he didn't see them where they were supposed to be and went through his progressions to the next option. It's all timing and precision with this offense.

FCB02062 said:

Pundit after pundit....Chatham, Ted Johnson,Phil Perry, Orlovsky...have pointed out play after play after play where Brady eschews a wide open Myers, Sanu, Dorsett, LaCosse to force the ball to a covered edelman or White. Brady was not good this year, and if you think he was you're not being honest w yourself

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I don't think Brady is a very patient QB in terms of teaching newbie WRs...

Antonio Brown is mostly at fault for the WR woes.

Belichick not putting a strong offense together due to bad luck, bad drafting, bad FA, etc. is second at fault.

Receivers not actually catching balls, and that includes Edelman, is third at fault.

Brady not passing to guys that cant catch or generally know what they are doing is fourth at fault.

upstater1 said:

Do yourselves a favor and have a look at the Titans WR Brown's stats for his first 6 games.

They were positively very N'Kealharryish.

Brown caught fire the 2nd half of the season.

Harry was hurt half the year, and only played 6 or 7 games.

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You do realize AJ Brown had 100 yards receiving in his first NFL game right?

zipster9 said:

I don't think Brady is a very patient QB in terms of teaching newbie WRs...

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I really hate that narrative. The time for teaching is supposed to be in the offseason, not every freakin' weak of the actual season. Brady wasn't having any problems teaching Thomas or Brown, was he?

Observer said:

Antonio Brown is mostly at fault for the WR woes.

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Antonio Brown is 0% at fault for the WR woes.

Lol at people that blame brady for this mess. After Edelman these wideouts are total dogsh*t. The numbers speak for themselves. Sanu was a disaster. Harry couldn’t get open if he ran through a wet paper bag. Meyers did well and then his snap counts go down for no apparent reason. Put any QB under center and let’s see if they come up with better numbers than brady with this pile of crap. Harry is gonna have to learn to get a better release of the line and actually get separation.

How embarrassing is it that demaryius Thomas still had more total yards combine than sanu and harry put together.

FCB02062 said:

Pundit after pundit....Chatham, Ted Johnson,Phil Perry, Orlovsky...have pointed out play after play after play where Brady eschews a wide open Myers, Sanu, Dorsett, LaCosse to force the ball to a covered edelman or White. Brady was not good this year, and if you think he was you're not being honest w yourself

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I know your post doesn't blame this on declining skills, but to be clear, that's a decision making issue.

Tunescribe said:

It was a real mixed bag with him, though. Meyers, LaCosse and Harry struggled mightily understanding the offense and often weren't where they were supposed to be on their routes timing-wise. Edelman, Dorsett and Sanu were hampered by injury. Brady also was fighting injuries affecting his accuracy. Without question he forced too many balls to covered guys but it's hard telling how much of that was on him and how much was on the receivers. It also is possible Brady didn't throw to guys that appeared open on film because he didn't see them where they were supposed to be and went through his progressions to the next option. It's all timing and precision with this offense.

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Good point.

Some of it was the offensive playbook in regards to new guys, but when you can't beat man coverage and you drop passes thrown directly at your hands/chest, those aren't the 'system'. Some of these elite WRs others have drafted drop nothing, like nothing. So many deep balls, even by the better deep ball QBs are not perfect balls. The throws in NE this year basically had to be perfect or it was going to be incomplete. The coverage was so tight all year. Guys being open as the 4th read is useless. Situational football and your number is called, no one could get open but 11 and if they did they dropped it. Brady missed alot of throws too but it's probably not that many more than usual, we are just talking about it because we couldn't do anything on key downs.

NYCPATS4LIFE said:

Meyers did well and then his snap counts go down for no apparent reason.

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Meyers wasn't doing well.