man do the Patriots look much better with Julian Edelman back and Josh Gordon starting to flash. Sony Michel is starting to come on for them as well and they have wisely started to feed their pass catching RB James White in the short passing game again. Even though he had that drop that lead to an INT Chris Hogan looks pretty good again as a 4th or 5th option. He was looking very bad when he was forced to be the #1 receiver.
Teams can't just double Gronk now and take him out of the game and shut down the entire offense like they were doing before when they only had 3 active WR's- two of which are 1st round busts that suck in Coradarelle Patterson- who is nothing more than a kick returner- and Phillip Dorsett- who has 4.3 speed but can't get open and can't catch a cold.
It's a shame that Patterson and Dorsett are both so bad at receiver. Both of them are fast. Really fast. Patterson ran 4.41 at the combine and Dorsett ran 4.33. Both were 1st round picks and neither of them have ever been able to figure out the receiver position. They might as well just move Patterson to RB and they should probably just cut Dorsett because he flat out sucks. Patterson at least has given them some big plays on returns and on bubble screens. Dorsett is just awful.
Their defense still sucks though. But as long as Brady has his weapons and they can score 30+ a game they'll be able to mask that. If not for Gronk and Hogan having two uncharacteristic really bad drops near the red-zone that lead to INT's they would've dropped 50+ on the Colts.
Brady will probably get them back to the Super Bowl as long as his weapons stay healthy and Josh Gordon stays out of his own way and doesn't get into trouble off the field. Belichik will ensure they probably lose the Super Bowl though because his defense is once again straight trash.
