Brown could be Brady’s best receiver since Moss
It is possible for news to be both absolutely shocking and completely predictable. We certainly discovered this on Saturday when, just a few hours after the Raiders released wide receiver Antonio Brown, the Patriots signed Brown to a one-year, $15 million deal with a $9 million signing bonus.
Everybody who thought about this saw it coming, and its name could be Randy Moss all over again. Of course, we’re referring to New England trading a fourth-round pick to the Raiders for Moss’ services in April 2007. Moss had been a relatively unproductive malingerer in Oakland for two seasons after the Vikings traded him to Oakland in 2005. And even in his salad days in Minnesota, Moss could be a Grade-A pain in the butt.
But when he got word of the Patriot Way … well, all of a sudden, Moss became the NFL’s most dominant receiver.
Moss set the single-season record with 23 touchdown receptions in the 2007 regular season, adding another in Super Bowl XLII, which the Patriots lost to end their potentially perfect season.
But in a four-year stretch, Moss caught 259 passes for 3,904 yards and 50 touchdowns for the Patriots, firmly establishing himself, at least in Peak Value terms, as the greatest receiver in franchise history.
Here’s the rub: In the modern version of the Patriots’ offense, Brown could be just as valuable as Moss ever was.
Is Brown capable of molding himself into a guy who will go with the culture, as opposed to the problem he could be in Pittsburgh and was nothing else but in Oakland?
We can only wait and see. But from a pure football perspective, it’s hard to imagine a better marriage of scheme and player, and a greater need more completely filled than the move for Brown into an offense now without Rob Gronkowski and hoping that Josh Gordon can keep his life together.
The combination of Brown, Gordon and Julian Edelman makes this offense nearly impossible to defend, especially
when you factor in the power running game the Patriots perfected in the second half of last season and rode all the way to their sixth Super Bowl title. This is an offense that has always relied heavily on the ability of its receivers to run option routes, to use a defender’s leverage
against him to succeed through the route adjustments.
There are few who have done this better than Brown throughout his career, as he learned to extend plays during Ben Roethlisberger’s scramble drills.
And the slot plays created off play action in this offense?
Brady hasn’t had a vertical target with Brown’s potential since Moss. We are about to find out if the relative lack of deep throws in New England’s offense had more to do with a lack of reliable downfield options than anything having to do with Brady’s functional velocity.
Let’s remember that Brown’s total receiving statistics from his fifth through his ninth NFL seasons top any other receiver in league history in that specific timeline – he’s the best ever in targets (859), receptions (576) and receiving yards (7,646). He’s fourth in that spectrum with 59 touchdowns, behind only Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens and Marvin Harrison, and he was blazing a trail to the Hall of Fame before everything got weird.
This isn’t a decent addition for the Patriots; this is a catastrophe for the rest of the NFL if it all works out, especially if Gordon is on the field at the same time through the entire season.
That’s a whole lot of “if,” but it’s easy to see why the Patriots are taking these shots and why Brown finds this option so appealing.