I groggily watched the waning moments of the Patriots vs. Chiefs Sunday night football game on a plane back to Boston. I did my best to conceal my faded Yankees hat among the sea of Patriots jerseys, unifying both red and blue. They’re a prideful lot, the Boston bunch, and the Pats give them a lot to be proud of. Especially the (insert overused complimentary nickname) Tom Brady.
Just as I was flying through air, so was his pass-catching crew, who took over against a feeble Chiefs' secondary. Not that the Patriots secondary wasn’t overwhelmed either -- I have a permanently fixed image of both McCourty brothers chasing Tyreek Hill on his 75-yard game-tying reception.
Short and tall, wide and thin, fast and slow: The Patriots fundamentally lack anyone who individually checks off every box a wide receiver should. But one person can’t do it on his own; as they say, squad goals, right?
The Pats technically do have a receiver capable of being the best player on the planet: Josh Gordon. Gordon’s raw talent boggles the eye as much as his maddening inability to hone it into a single season -- that is, since his epic 2013 season. Gordon is off his peak with the Patriots, but he easily is the most dynamic outside threat since Randy Moss, if he gets going.
Julian Edelman is off suspension and back to being Wes Welker 2.0: slightly more nimble but nowhere near the same hands, sufficed by a key fourth-quarter drop. Edelman is Brady’s safety blanket regardless and number 12 looks a different figure with his diminutive receiver in the fold. Without him, there's a drop off.
Sony "PlayStation" Michel and James White form the pairing that Belichick has been searching for throughout his three-million-year tenure as head coach. A bruising Bulldog and a shifty Swiss army knife is exactly what Stevan Ridley and Shane Vereen, Mike Gillislee and Rex Burkhead, or, heck, even Marion Barber and Danny Woodhead were supposed to be. Hopefully White got his truck from his Super Bowl LI performance that Tom certainly still owes him.
You think I forgot about Gronk? Well, I did. Let’s talk about Chris Hogan instead, who finally got into the groove of making plays again having been kept relatively quiet all season, much to the scourge of my fantasy team. How about human monster truck James Develin? He had a catch -- bet you didn’t remember that. Cordarrelle Patterson exists too, somehow. I know I’m not alone in thinking return man was his only position.
Of course, at the end of the day, it’s all about Gronk. Quiet all day, he burnt balcony-jumping Josh Shaw for the biggest catch of the night, setting up Tom Brady’s game-winning ball-clutch to win the game (I know, I know, it was Gostkowski’s field goal). Every time I want to bet against the burly tight end, I hear Cris Collinsworth in my ear: “He’s too big for a corner and too fast for a linebacker.” Oh, to be a Pats fan.
The Anti-Bostonian: The case for Brady's bread-bearers (a.k.a. his receivers)
