When it comes to the players who have had the most success in the red zone, it’s certainly frustrating that they’ll be without one of them over the final playoff push against some tough opponents.
With match-ups against the Ravens, Broncos, Jets and Dolphins coming up, the loss of Danny Amendola thanks to a high-ankle sprain is frustrating, especially given that it happened after Cyrus Jones’ miscues forced Amendola back into needing to handle the punt return duties last Sunday, which is how he got injured.
Through 13-weeks, Amendola was a perfect 7-of-7 when being targeted by Patriots quarterbacks, including 4-of-4 by Brady with two touchdowns. It seems like every reception he’s been making has been critical, especially considering that of his seven receptions, six were first downs.
TOTAL RED ZONE STATS BY ALL QBS:
TOTAL RED ZONE STATS FROM BRADY:
However, the Patriots have already seen some other players, in addition to Amendola, have pretty good production in this offense. In these totals you’ll notice that Brady also had pretty good luck targeting Bennett, connecting on 5-of-6 attempts including two touchdowns. That’s good news considering that Rob Gronkowski’s loss now puts more of the focus on Bennett, who admitted this week that he’s still not yet 100% as he continues dealing with his ankle injury.
Also at the top of the mix has been rookie receiver Malcolm Mitchell, who has caught 4-of-5 passes with two touchdowns of his own. He’s come on strong over the past several games and continues to make a case for himself in an offense that has been in dire need of a talented, young receiver for a while now.
Brady overall inside the 20 has hit 26-of-37 for 171 and 14 touchdowns, completing an impressive 70% of his red zone passes. He’s currently the league’s top quarterback in terms of his overall quarterback rating at 113.1, which is ahead of Matt Ryan (112.3), Dak Prescott (108.6), Drew Brees (105.0) and Marcus Mariota (101.9).
Of that group, Brees is actually ahead of Brady in terms of his completion percentage in the red zone at 74.7%. From there it’s Brady (70.3%), Marcus Mariota (64.5%), Matt Ryan (62.1%), followed by Dak Prescott (59.6%).
It will be a big test for a player who now has to adjust a bit after seeing another key player go down. But for Brady, he’s no stranger to this scenario given what he’s faced over the years and hopefully for the Patriots, the results lead to a top seed by the time we hit the end of December.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
