Just finished watching the game with an eye on Dobson and IMO people are being overly harsh on him.
There were a number of posts talking about his difficulty getting off jams, and I only saw one play all game that he was jammed. Since it became a running play and the defender grabbed his jersey and pulled him aside (something that would have been flagged if it were a pass) it is impossible to draw any conclusions from.
The lack of separation was overstated as well. He doesn't have KT's sudden-ness, but he can be surprisingly quick when needed. Here is a gif of his comeback catch:
Dobson catch Animated GIF | GIFs - GIFSoup.com
^That^ is as much room as Thompkins created on any of his catches, against some of the tighter coverage he saw all night.
Here is another play that I thought worthy of reviewing:
Dobson miss Animated GIF | GIFs - GIFSoup.com
It starts out with a rather unconvincing fake, but even with the DB reading deep coverage all the way, Dobson quickly gets on top of him and looks like he'll pull ahead, until realizing the throw is going to be short. At that point, it is a matter of trying to get jump ball positioning on a line drive pass.
Had Tebow led him further with an arching pass, it could very well have been one of Randy Moss' patented
lull the DB to sleep and then glide past him with surprising speed catches. Even if he hadn't put it out front, if there was just a little more air under it, Dobson could have used his length to his advantage.
Either way, the lack of separation was more based on the throw than the route.
Here is another one:
Dobson miss #2 Animated GIF | GIFs - GIFSoup.com
After watching this again, it is more possible that Dobson should have stopped than I remember (I had recalled it being thrown late, but Mallet had to wait for Edelman to clear out the area). That said, I still think this was a misfire on Mallett's part. Part of the reason for my thinking, which is hard to tell due to the size of these files, is that the throw was too low. Even if Dobson stops in the right spot, the throw basically puts him on the ground when there is no DB in the area to worry about.
Now, I don't doubt that Brady trusts Thompkins more. There was one play where he went to a tightly coverage KT when Dobson was pretty uncovered on the left, both pretty much the same distance from the LOS (5 yards). That said, Dobson was only on the field for one of KT's three Brady-tossed catches, so it isn't as if Dobson was ignored or failed to get open on those plays.
A few other plays that I didn't bother to gif, but I thought worth mentioning:
* Dobson failed to break free on an EZ attempt that fell incomplete, though it was actually very similar to the Vereen TD. The difference is that Brady made an incredible thrown and Mallett's didn't. I might have liked to see more effort on Aaron's part, though.
* On the Tebow scramble as toss down the right sideline, Dobson had worked his way free.
* A coverage SNAFU left Aaron completely wide open for a walk-in TD if Tebow had the time to get a pass off. It looked like everyone, including the OL and DBs, were confused as to why Tim didn't dump the ball off to Suds as the play intended. I don't mention this to give Aaron any credit, just that I think sometimes we are overly results-oriented in our thinking. If Tebow had somehow gotten the pass off, Dobson almost certainly scores and fans feel better out his game, even though his overall performance wasn't any better.
All told, it was an OK game for the rook. The drop and possible miscommunication reflect poorly on him. I also have some reservations about his blocking; he lollygags like Moss and a couple times appeared to get lost in a sea of bodies. But based on this one game, there is no reason to suggest that he can't create room or get off jams.
