McDaniels faces play-call dilemma
FOXBORO — There’s little silver lining in what happened to the Patriots wide receivers this summer.
Malcolm Mitchell couldn’t get his knee healthy. Same for Kenny Britt’s hamstring. Jordan Matthews couldn’t overcome a hamstring injury of his own, and his replacement, Eric Decker, couldn’t catch.
Almost every NFL team predominantly plays threereceiver sets. The Patriots barely have three receivers.
So this is where it gets interesting: Josh McDaniels, widely regarded as one of the sharpest offensive minds in the game, gets to be extra creative in September. Or, more accurately, McDaniels needs to be extra creative.
The unpredictable nature of the Pats offense should be super-charged in the open- ing weeks, and that’s simply because the Patriots lack conventional personnel.
“I think they’re always unpredictable,” said Texans coach Bill O’Brien. “I think Josh McDaniels is the best in the game at what he does, game plan, week-to-week different plan, using differ- ent players in different spots. I think we’re going to prepare very hard but once the game starts, you know like the old saying goes, preparation is out the window.”
When these teams squared off in Week 3 a year ago, the Patriots offense, for the most part, was well-defined. They were going to play mostly ‘11’ personnel — with three receivers, one back, and one tight end. They were going to take deep shots to Brandin Cooks on the perimeter. Rob Gronkowski would stress the defensive vertically in the middle of the field, and Danny Amendola would hunt for mismatches in the short middle.
The Pats mixed in different formations as the year progressed, finishing the season with 47.7 percent of their snaps in ‘11.’ The majority of Brady’s passing attempts came from this set. Including playoffs, Brady completed 261-of-409 passes for 3,285 yards working with that group.
But Brady’s success with less popular personnel groupings — such as two tight ends, or even two halfbacks — likely has McDaniels pondering his options.
As Julian Edelman serves his suspension, no wide receiver on the Pats roster has topped 680 yards in a season. They’re the only team in the league without a receiver that has reached the 700-yard mark. So will McDaniels roll out Chris Hogan, Phillip Dorsett and Cordarrelle Patterson on 50 percent of the snaps?
Or will he call on unorthodox groupings more than usual?
The Patriots rarely used two tailbacks together in 2017, but Brady was ridiculously efficient in those situations. He finished 40for-50 for 478 yards, a whopping 9.56 yards per attempt, with a pair of running backs on the field (some combination of James White, Rex Burkhead and Dion Lewis). Even with rookie Sony Michel substituted for Lewis, this is one of the best passcatching backfields in the league.
There’s a reason why the two-tailback grouping is uncommon, though.
“When you put two halfbacks on the field together, sometimes there’s a finite number of things you can do with them,” McDaniels said. “If the defense puts a certain personnel grouping in there, it may affect what you wanted to do. If they leave a big group out there, that’s one thing. If they put a bunch of little guys out there in nickel or dime, that’s a different conundrum for you.”
How about two tight ends? The Patriots were in ‘12’ personnel, or two tight ends, for 201 snaps last season (15.9 percent). But most of those were with Gronkowski and Dwayne Allen, not Gronkowski and Jacob Hollister.
On passing plays out of ‘12’ personnel, Brady was 76for-109 (69 percent) for 941 yards.
What’s in store for the season opener at the Texans? Well, with no Cooks or Amendola, it’ll be hard for the Patriots to replicate last year’s game plan. And that’s fine. McDaniels still has pieces with which to work. He just needs to put the puzzle together.
“There’s a lot that goes into those decisions,” McDaniels said. “It’s something you look at and you say, ‘Do I want two tight ends? Do I want four receivers? Do I want two backs? There’s a lot of different variables that go into it, and hopefully you can make the right choices on game day.”