In the minds of many Patriots fans, Wes Welker is now catching passes from the wrong quarter back. Whether or not he plays for Indianapolis or Denver, Peyton Manning is NOT Tom Brady and in-turn his now top target: Wes Welker is in the wrong town.
"He was my favorite player...you're goanna love him." Manning reported Brady saying when he was the subject of an interview by Peter King a few days ago. But no matter how corgil, New England's future hall of famer might be, Wes Welker is gone, Rob Gronkowski's arms don't seem to stay intact as he has once again broken his forearm, and well, Aaron Hernandez is in jail. Therefore, Brady needs some new targets, a kind of transition he has not seen in a long time.
Fact is, when Randy Moss left the team via intense controversy, he was replaced by Welker. No major drop of there and in fact, for Tom Brady things got even better over the next few seasons. Between new tight ends: Gronkowski and Hernandez, Brady would dish out a total of 56 touchdown passes to his tight ends in just 3 seasons of play.
In truth, Tom Brady has never faced this time of receiving drop off but with it all nearly set in stone, this is happening and the Patriots must cope...harsh words. But for New England fans wondering if they will have to endure a heartbreaking season, there is hope.
Over the course of just under 3 eventful months of shocking off-season moves, Bill Belichick and company immediately accounted for the loss of Welker by signing Rams wide receiver: Danny Ammendola mere minutes after Welker was snagged by the Broncos. About a month after Ammendola, the Pats continued their wide receiver stockpiling by adding college grad: Aaron Dobson via the draft.
But even then they were not done. In a conclusion to their trio of moves, Kenbrell Thompkins came to the club in May as an undrafted free agent out of Cincinnati.
So between those three men, neither of them are older than 27 and with the exception of Amendola none of them have ever played NFL football. All be it, even Amendola has not ever seen the intensity and pressure that comes with being top player on a team that is fighting for a Super Bowl win. So with so little experience divvied up between these guys, who do we have to look at when calling them the receivers of the future? One word: scouting.
When you focus on Dobson and Thompkins alone, both were top guys at their respective colligiant teams. In 4 years in the NCAA, Dobson notched 2,398 yards with 24 touchdowns and a naming as an All-American back in 2012. As for Thompkins he did not even play all 4 of his college years in D-1 football. He spent two years in Cincinnati though and complied upwards of 1,000 yards receiving.
But after 1 preseason game we now have even more to look at when studying Dobson, Ammendola and Thompkins.
"Yeah well it started with what we did up front, handling the ball from the first play - 62 yards - yeah incredible, hand the ball off as many times as we did on the first drive and get the ball in the end zone it was great, the offensive line took a lot of pride in that. We're challenged to be a tough football team so to really do that and run the ball like we did was great and the second drive we were able to make some plays throwing the ball, spread the ball to different guys. KT (Kenbrell Thompkins) did a good job, Aaron (Dobson) did a good job, Josh (Boyce) had some opportunities, Danny (Amendola), I mean everyone contributed so it was really a good week, it was a good week." Tom Brady said in a glowing tribute to his new receivers who were dominant despite accounting for none of New England's touchdowns.
"Tom [Brady] is the greatest but if we have a bunch of targets he gets even better." Patriots back: LeGarret Blount said....and he could not have been any more correct.
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