Building the new WR corps

[Raymond]

Welker was a nice little player, but not necessarily worth the picks the Patriots threw away on him. :confused2:

Wow. I'm speechless.

 

[Gumby]

Wow. I'm speechless.

Don't be like that.

she was OBVIOUSLY giving the 'DAY OF' the acquisition analysis for each of those guys. The point was the ultimate success or failure of each of the WRs COULD NOT BE PREDICTED based on their prior success or lack thereof at their previous homestead.

 

[tonyto3690]

I'd be much happier having Lloyd and his decent production back -- that gives he rookies a buffer. If one or both surpass Lloyd -- awesome. If only one performs at a starter level, then we have two outside receivers. If both fail, we have effectively have last year's offense.

Without Lloyd, the rookies must succeed or the offense will be worse than last year.

You had me until that last line. There are a lot of things that will dictate this years success. If we have better luck than last year we could easily be better without them being anything decent role players.

-Gronks health
-Hernandez's health
-Ridley's growth
-Vereen's growth
-If Amendola can play outside the numbers better than Welker

People also forget a few other things.

-Even when playing in the beginning of the year, Gronk looked like he was clearly hurt and looked a step slower. Gimme touchdowns were incompletions and he just didn't look right. He played what appeared close to 100% for maybe one or two games.

-Hernandez came back from his injury early because of Gronk and we couldn't afford to give him proper time to heal. He never came close to 100% after he got hurt

-Welkers game directly negates the effectiveness of Gronk and Hernandez since he occupies the same space that they are best in.

-We had a new OC who had never had any single TE close to the talent of Gronk and Hernandez and has always been a big time WR spread offense guy. The play calling didn't get any better until about 3/4ths through the season and there were still some WTF drives.

 

[Bruins29]

Agreed! I dont know what people are worried about with this O group. Its already been broken down. Plus the whole point is to spend money wisely. This O will be this O and even if they take a small step back, it would still be a great O. Addressing the needs on the D is what this team desperately needed.

I will take less O from this team and more D any day. We need to get back to winning Lombardy trophies not putting up Madden/Fantasy Football numbers.

 

[supafly]

If the 2 rookies (Dobson/Boyce) can work out well with Brady, then, this offense would be hard to stop, even more so than the past 3 seasons and more importantly, the playoffs, because it can attack all parts of the football field.

So many weapons, you got Dobson and Boyce on the outside, Amendola in the slot, Gronkowski stretching the seam, Hernandez being lined up everywhere to create mismatches and Vereen catching passes from the backfield.

Not to mention Jones, Edelman and Ballard for depth.

But the most important things are health and how fast the new guys (Amendola, Dobson, Boyce) can get acclimated with Brady.

I agree with your general thoughts for sure.

One thing to keep in mind is that Amendola already has experience in the JMcD offensive system, so that's a huge plus right there.

At the moment our WRs consist of Amendola, Dobson, Jones, Edelman, Boyce, and Jenkins. We could also see some of Holmes in TC/preseason to potentially give a push to the others (maybe), and I'd have to guess that we'll still be bringing in at least one more WR who is a casualty from TC/roster cuts too. Keep in mind that we all had countless conversations that were absolutely pointless about Belichick's initial group of WRs in the spring, with all of the "Gonzalez, Ocho, Gaffney, and Stallworth will SURELY make the 53 man roster" talk....I expect the WRs that are here now to show us a better glimpse towards the real roster due to the draft picks this year as opposed to last year, but I also wouldn't pencil all of these guys into their slots. There will almost definitely be some additional player(s) brought in for competition, and anything can happen to improve the situation from now until the end of August.

If we're just talking about the position of WR alone, I honestly have no reason to believe that it shouldn't be an upgrade from last season's corps of Welker......and the other bums of Edelman (21 catches), and Branch (16 catches). The key obviously will be trying to either replace or spread around the production lost from Brandon Llyod, as Welker has been swapped for Amendola and should be able to put up 3/4 of his production in my opinion.

As you point out, once we get to the "real" first and second receivers of Hernandez and Gronkowski, along with Vereen and L.Washington contributing in the flat passes/RB screen game, the offensive situation looks much more promising...but I honestly don't feel nearly the concern about just the WR position alone as I did pre-draft, and I expected it to look much better at the end of April.

 

[PittPatriot]

Agreed! I dont know what people are worried about with this O group. Its already been broken down. Plus the whole point is to spend money wisely. This O will be this O and even if they take a small step back, it would still be a great O. Addressing the needs on the D is what this team desperately needed.

I will take less O from this team and more D any day. We need to get back to winning Lombardy trophies not putting up Madden/Fantasy Football numbers.

Your talking about the same O that has always come up a little short in big spots in each of our playoff losses dating back to the 2006 AFCCG, right?
I just want an O that doesn't play like the early 2000s Colts: records in the regular season and recoils in the playoffs.

 

[supafly]

Your talking about the same O that has always come up a little short in big spots in each of our playoff losses dating back to the 2006 AFCCG, right?
I just want an O that doesn't play like the early 2000s Colts: records in the regular season and recoils in the playoffs.

I think the addition of the WRs who can play more of an outside game, along with the committment to the running game again should help to offset this problem this year--even though I firmly believe that the health of Gronk was a big factor.

As much as I agree with your statement, the same can be said for the defense, who averaged giving up less than 15 pts per game in 7/9 of the playoff/championship game stretch during our 3 SB wins.

I want a D that doesn't give up 33, 28, and 28 in our last 3 home playoff losses, along with 2 crucial backbreaking last minute TD drives of 85+ yds in the last 2 Super Bowl losses, and 3 late game consecutive TD's in the most recent AFCCG. I think that is the most important aspect. We can't continue to put the weight of the world on Brady's shoulders. We need to be able to win playoff games while still "only" scoring 20-23 pts at the same time.