With the Stanley Cup
Finals just finished and under two months until the first NFL preseason game,
it’s the perfect time to start looking at New England’s roster. I’ll go through
the depth chart, position by position, looking at the players, their past
performances and future expectations for training camp and the next season of
football.
Position Overview
Over the past few seasons, tight ends Rob Gronkowski and Aaron
Hernandez have been the most important players on the New England Patriots,
after Tom Brady and Wes Welker. After missing on athletic
tight ends like Daniel Graham and Ben Watson in previous drafts, Bill Belichick got it right in 2010
when he drafted Gronkowski in the 2nd round and Hernandez in the 4th.
Since that draft, the two have been stellar. Gronkowski has accumulated 38
touchdowns in three seasons, with the most recent one severely shortened due to
injury. Hernandez has played most of his time split out wide, where he can make
plays in the open field. Michael Hoomanawanui
and Daniel Fells rounded out the
position last season, combining for only 9 total receptions.
Belichick picked both of his star tight ends later in the
draft than their respective talents would have indicated. Gronk slipped to the
2nd round due to struggles with a back injury that kept him out for
his senior season. Hernandez dropped to the 4th because of rumored
off-field problems, including stories about drug use. Unfortunately for the
Patriots, these problems have caught up with the team. Gronkowski has missed
most of the off-season after nursing a broken arm, then recently underwent
surgery on his back – which could have him out of commission until after the
start of the season. Hernandez has recently made the news after police began
treating him as a person of interest in a Massachusetts murder case. What was
once a position of strength for the Patriots has become another off-season
question mark.
Player-by-Player
1. Rob Gronkowski
At 6’6” and 265 pounds, Rob Gronkowski is an imposing player
and a perfect tight end. He can block, run, break tackles and catch. And he can
score touchdowns. Gronkowski has 38 career touchdowns in 43 career games. More
impressively, his 38 touchdowns came on 187 receptions. Just about once every
five times he catches the ball, Gronkowski scores a touchdown. By comparison,
over his entire career tight end Tony Gonzalez averaged about 12 catches per
touchdown[1].
Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe averaged about 13 per touchdown. Former Patriot
great Ben Coates had about 10 per touchdown. Antonio Gates has scored a
touchdown for every 8 catches. Jerry Rice scored once for every 8 catches. In
his record-setting 1987 season, Rice scored 22 touchdowns[2]
on 65 receptions, or one score for about every 3 receptions (in a
strike-shortened 12 game season). In his record-breaking 2007 season, Randy
Moss scored 23 TDs on 98 receptions, or once every 4 receptions.
|
Player
|
Position
|
Receptions
|
TD
Receptions
|
Rec
per TD Rec
|
|
Shannon
Sharpe
|
TE
|
815
|
62
|
13.1
|
|
Tony
Gonzalez
|
TE
|
1242
|
103
|
12.1
|
|
Ben
Coates
|
TE
|
499
|
50
|
10.0
|
|
Jerry
Rice
|
WR
|
1549
|
197
|
7.9
|
|
Antonio
Gates
|
TE
|
642
|
83
|
7.7
|
|
Terrell
Owens
|
WR
|
1078
|
153
|
7.0
|
|
Randy
Moss
|
WR
|
982
|
156
|
6.3
|
|
Rob
Gronkowski
|
TE
|
187
|
38
|
4.9
|
Gronkowski’s numbers support what his physical size,
strength and speed would indicate about him: he is a prototypical red zone
threat. The Patriots funnel the ball to him when their offense is in scoring
position, and Gronkowski is almost unbeatable in that area of the field. If his
career lasts another 8 or 10 years, he probably won’t catch as many passes as
anyone on the above list. But he would absolutely shatter their touchdown
totals.
The problem for the Patriots is that it doesn’t look like
Gronkowski’s career will last another decade. Perhaps the broken arm he suffered
while blocking a PAT this past season can be written off as a fluke. But the
high ankle sprain that limited him in Super Bowl 46 is more worrying. That
injury was the result of Gronkowski’s tenacious ferocity. He drags people on
his back and takes extra, punishing hits because he fights for extra yards. His
body might not be able to take that punishment for too much longer, especially
if this offseason’s back surgery is any indication. Apparently undertaken shave
down or partially remove a bothersome spinal disk, that surgery is especially
worrying because of its similarity to the surgery Gronk went through in his
college days. This guy takes a pounding. Will these surgeries catch up to him?
2. Aaron Hernandez
Hernandez has nearly limitless potential. But troubles on
the field and especially off of it threaten the longevity of his career.
Injuries last season cut his production almost in half. 79 receptions in 14
games in 2011 became 51 in 10. 910 yards became 483. However, when he played,
he produced, perhaps because the Patriots started to rely on him and his
playmaking abilities more than ever last year. His skill could place him at
nearly any offensive skill position. He could line up on the end of the line or
split out wide. He’s even taken handoffs and swing passes out of the backfield.
Regardless of where he lines up, his playmaking ability shines when he finds
himself in the open field, although he seems to always juke to the inside while
running up the field. Again Hernandez’ talent and the production he’s had over
his short career are promising.
Forgive me for writing from a Patriots, football-based
perspective, but Hernandez’ career with New England appears to be cut short
after he has been implicated in a murder investigation into the death of Odin
Lloyd. Fans of all sports invest so much time, energy and money into “their”
teams and the players/gods that fill those teams’ rosters. Whenever a tragedy
like this comes around, it’s hard to remember that a man, Odin Lloyd lost his
life to early and a family lost a son or a husband or a father or all three.
Even Hernandez, although he deserves justice if he did perpetrate this crime,
should be pitied for the poor choices he (may have) made, the family, young
daughter, career and future that he may lose. Perhaps it’s hard to remember
those things when tragedies like this invade the sporting sphere of culture
because we look to sports, in part, in order to forget those horrible things
about life.
3. Michael Hoomanawanui
Hooman is a big body, mostly brought on the field last
season to block as the third tight end to Gronk and Hernandez. His stretch of
brilliance last season came during weeks 15 and 16. Against the 49ers, he
caught a 41 yard bomb up the seam during the Patriots’ furious second half
comeback. The next week, against the Jaguars, he caught 2 passes for 46 yards,
including a 32 yarder. If the Pats don’t have Gronkowski at the start of the
season, they’ll have to replace his production by committee. In that case,
Hoomanawanui would find most of his targets coming in the middle of the field,
especially running up the seams behind linebackers and in front of safeties, as
Gronk often did.
4. Daniel Fells
Last season, Fells found his way onto the field as a
fullback, blocking out of the backfield. He appeared in 13 games, but only
caught 4 passes for 85 yards. That marked a massive dropoff in his personal
production. In his previous three seasons, one with Denver and two with St.
Louis, Fells caught 81 passes for 920 yards and 8 total touchdowns, which is
production more typical of a second or third tight end on the depth chart.
Fells could prove to be a valuable member of the committee that fills in for
the top two tight ends on the depth chart. His career statistics aren’t
extraordinary, but they are indicative of a player with decent pass catching
ability. With Tom Brady, decent pass catchers can become key cogs in an
offensive system.
5. Jake Ballard
After two seasons and a Super Bowl with the New York Giants,
Jake Ballard made his way to Foxboro through unusual circumstances. After
suffering a torn ACL during training camp, Ballard was placed on injured
reserve. Because the move was made during the offseason, Ballard had to pass
through waivers, where he was claimed – controversially – by Bill Belichick. He
spent all of last season on the bench, recovering from his injury.
Of the three tight ends behind Hernandez and Gronkowski on
the depth chart, Ballard is the most promising. He played consistently in only
one season of his three in the NFL. In 2011 he played in 14 games, caught 38
passes for 604 yards and 4 touchdowns. For a 6-6, 265 lb tight end, he showed
decent athleticism, although not as much as Gronkowski. Assuming he plays this
season like he did two years ago, he would take the lead role in the tight end
committee, assuming most, but not all, of the role normally taken on by Gronk.
6. Brandon Ford
This rookie out of Clemson signed a month ago as a rookie
free agent. He played well in college, finishing his tenure as a Tiger with a
better-than-decent 8 touchdown season. A
4.74 40-yard-dash and a 4.64 shuttle time indicate that Ford has pretty
good athleticism, although not enough to make him a drafted player. If he makes
the roster (and he might. The Pats usually carried 5 tight ends on their roster
last year), he could push someone like Hoomanawanui deeper down the depth
chart, but it may be likely that he was signed on as a camp body, to add to the
physicality and competitiveness of training before being cut at the end of the
offseason.
Final Thoughts
If there is ever an opportunity for Bill Belichick to prove
the importance of quality depth over star individuals, it’s this season. The
tight end position, which has been the strength of the Patriots’ offense and
maybe the most important component of the team’s high-scoring, high-flying
attack, is in turmoil. Multiple offseason surgeries have all but ruled
Gronkowski out for the first weeks of the season, and it doesn’t look like Aaron
Hernandez will be around either. It seems unlikely that, if the Patriots are
missing their top two receiving threats, they will be as successful an offense
as they have in years past.
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