Brady has only been ABLE to get him the ball on the shorter routes because he can't get separation on the deeper ones. The INT on Sunday night shows that.
Dorsett was double-covered on that route and that certainly wasn't Brady's best effort or judgment.
But that still ducks the question, "what percentage of Dorsett's routes have been deep compared to Cooks? And what percentage have been more like Amendola's typical routes?" The point being that, if they have Dorsett running mostly Amendola-type routes, then clearly the Pats are NOT "relying on him to be Cooks' replacement."
Because Patterson has been tasked with more of the routes that Amendola used to run here. Have you seen him attempt a 7-9 route yet?
He's been running Amendola routes regularly? Seems to me that he's been running mostly RB-type routes, and running them well enough to get open.
Very. And that's a knock on him going back to Tennessee. Brady ignores him even though he's "wide open" and it's been widely commented, most recently by Lombardi today, that it's because Brady doesn't trust him. There are reports going back to training camp that Brady froze him out because he doesn't trust Patterson to be where Brady expects him to be on the field. That's because Patterson's routes have never been precise which makes him a horrible fit in the EP.
If Patterson is open, and Brady
sees that he's open, and Brady's primary target is covered (as Hogan has been on many throws when Patterson has been open), and Brady "ignores" Patterson anyway, then this "Brady's trust" thing has gotten to the point where it's f**king over the team.
Britt and Mitchell. Mitchell just missed the entire year last year and struggled with even getting on the field early in camp. Britt has had a checkered injury history. I give them a pass on Matthews because that's the only one that truly came out of leftfield (hence, why I didn't mention him in my previous post).
Before missing three games for the Browns last season with a knee issue, Britt missed only one game in his three years with the Rams, and it wasn't due to injury. Yes, he had relatively frequent injury issues back when he was still with the Titans (six years ago now), but at some point, those issues lose their predictive value wrt future injuries when there's been an extended period without significant injury.
Off the top of my head and verifying the numbers after that:
- John Brown (1 Yr/$5M)
- Michael Crabtree (3 Yrs/$21M)
- Allen Hurns (2 Yrs/$12M)
- Sammy Watkins (3 Yrs/$48M)
- Albert Wilson (3 Yrs/$24M)
Of all of them, everything considered, I would prefer Brown, Hurns (I think he would be good with Brady throwing him the ball), and Wilson. The Patriots instead went the bargain basement route. And that's not even mentioning the draft.
The Pats currently have $3.55M in cap space. If we pretend that Britt and Matthews (and Gordon) had never happened, that erases Gordon's $700k and $575k in dead money (all except Mitchell). That brings the Pats up to $4.8M in cap space. So, how would they have been able to afford any of the contracts signed by the players you've listed? What - specifically - could they have done (or not done) to have had enough (or ANY) cap space
at this point after having agreed to one of those contracts?
Ah, so they were complacent then.
Complacent? Britt wasn't injured until the end of June. Who could they have signed after that? Maybe they kept their hopes that Mitchell would recover alive too long, but they still had a healthy Matthews for the first week of Camp. Who was available to acquire after that (who was affordable)?
I would say both, however I don't think they touch him with a ten foot pole if the WR position is adequately manned.
Yup. If either of Britt or Matthews is healthy, there's no need for Gordon and we're not having this discussion.
If they can play, they're a bargain. The problem comes that they couldn't play and there was never really any indication that they were going to be healthy enough to do so. Now it's both a sunk cost and a wasted cost with the dead cap hits. Meanwhile, the WR corps as its currently constructed, is still among the worst in the NFL.
It was never about "bargain hunting". It was about taking their best shot with the caps space they knew they'd have available to spend.
"Never really any indication"? Britt was healthy enough to come off PUP and begin working in positional drills at about the same time that Matthews got injured. He'd made progress, but didn't get further enough along in time to make the 53. Again, who was available (and affordable) to be signed after the Pats knew what they (suddenly)
didn't have?
The Pats WR corps "as it's currently constructed" had only THREE viable members before Gordon was acquired (and we don't yet know if Gordon is actually viable). Yeah, I think that's worse than WR corps that have four or five viable members - especially when the receiving TE misses 2 of 3 games, the #1RB tears an ACL in the first game, and the rookie draft pick can't catch a pass to save his life.
Again ... either Britt or Matthews ... no problem. Life is what happens while you're making other plans. I really don't see any realistic woulda-coulda-shoulda on BB's part that would have made a significant difference.
