After being a top-10 offense for practically Tom Brady’s entire
run in New England, the Patriots have taken a step back in recent
seasons and it’s tough to not put a good bit of the blame on the
coaching staff and team management. The front office just has
not put the team in the position to succeed on a consistent basis.
Some of that has been addressed this offseason with the Patriots
moving on from the bizarre Matt Patricia offense they had in 2022
and going toward a more traditional offense coached by former
Texans head coach Bill O’Brien. This switch alone can really only
mean improvement, but there still seems to be a serious lack of
care being put into the pass-catching weapons in this offense.
The team’s leading receiver in each of the past three seasons,
Jakobi Meyers, left this off-season and signed a fairly similar
deal with the Raiders to the one the Patriots eventually gave
to JuJu Smith-Schuster. This was particularly surprising because
while Smith-Schuster has a longer history of success, he’s
historically played a similar role to the one that Meyers had
already been successful with in-house for the Patriots. Additionally,
the team brought in veterans like Kendrick Bourne and tight end
Mike Gesicki, but there still seems to be a serious lack of explosive
weapons for this roster. Without big-time playmakers, it’s
hard to imagine a world where Mac Jones is anything other than
a replacement-level QB2 for fantasy purposes.
In fact, one could argue that Jones has been less than a QB2
thus far throughout his relatively short career. While he finished
as the 22nd-highest-scoring quarterback, he actually was only
the 36th-best QB in fantasy points per game. That's slightly better
than Andy Dalton and Jacoby Brissett, and only a bit better than
what his teammate Bailey Zappe delivered in his four games started
in 2022.
With so many higher-upside options available in later rounds,
it’s just not worthwhile to draft Jones in anything other
than 2QB and SuperFlex leagues.
While Damien Harris technically got the ceremonial start in more
games, the Patriots seemed to commit to a true workhorse back
this past season when they began featuring Rhamondre Stevenson.
Stevenson impressed in his opportunity, generating nearly five
yards per carry to go along with 69 receptions, accumulating nearly
1,500 total yards and six total touchdowns along the way.
After letting Harris walk this off-season, there was some concern
the team wasn’t fully committed to Stevenson when they eventually
brought in another veteran, James Robinson. That didn’t
last long as the former Jaguars standout back was cut early in
camp (and has now signed with the Giants). A quick glance at the
Patriots depth chart shows very few reasons to be concerned because
the team really has not invested much in the position at all.
Players like Kevin Harris and Pierre Strong Jr. both were on the
roster a season ago and barely saw any playing time. Ty Montgomery
was another off-season acquisition and his history as a wide receiver
has some people worried about him taking passing game snaps away
from Stevenson, but realistically he’s been nothing more
than a journeyman player throughout his career. He hasn’t
caught more than 25 passes in a season since 2016 and there’s
no reason to be worried that he’s suddenly going to be featured,
at 30 years old, over Stevenson.
The biggest knock on Stevenson is probably that he’s in
this New England offense that most people expect to be pretty
bad. Concerns, of course, are that they will be bad enough that
they will not be able to feature the running game as much as they
have historically and that could lead to fewer touches for Stevenson.
But it would be tough for the offense to be much worse than it
was in 2022 when Stevenson was already a borderline RB1 while
conceding about a third of the backfield carries to Damien Harris.
Stevenson is a player who fantasy managers should be targeting
near the end of the second round or the beginning of the third
round. Particularly managers who are wide receiver heavy in Rounds
1 and 2 could really stack their rosters by drafting a reliable
mid-to-low-end RB1 like Stevenson.
Once considered one of the top up-and-coming pass-catchers in
the game, JuJu Smith-Schuster has now fallen to the point of becoming
an offseason afterthought, even in an offense that is almost completely
devoid of pass-catching weapons. He most recently had a decent,
albeit uninspiring fantasy season with the Super Bowl-winning
Chiefs who then decided to move on, which is never a great sign.
In Kansas City, Smith-Schuster had his best season since his 2018
breakout but still managed to put up just 933 yards and three
touchdowns in an offense quarterbacked by Patrick Mahomes. Needless
to say, fantasy managers should be worried about his prospects
in a much slower-paced offense quarterbacked by Mac Jones.
If there’s one thing to be hopeful about it’s that
Smith-Schuster is almost certainly in-line to be the target leader
in New England this season. Unlike when he was playing alongside
Travis Kelce, the Patriots do not have much competition for JuJu
and there’s a good chance that he meets or exceeds the 101
targets that he saw a season ago. Unfortunately, there’s
also a strong likelihood that the targets that he does see will
be substantially less valuable than the ones he saw in Kansas
City, therefore somewhat negating any real advantages stemming
from becoming New England’s top target.
Smith-Schuster is still just 26 years old and may not have yet
reached his physical prime. Perhaps New England’s longer-term
investment in him will help give him the confidence he needs to
get back to being a more consistent weapon in the league.
Fantasy managers don’t need to invest much to acquire Smith-Schuster
this season as he’s being drafted past pick 100 in most
leagues - right around the likes of Odell Beckham Jr., Gabe Davis,
Courtland Sutton, and Michael Thomas. While he may not have had
the high-end seasons of Thomas and Beckham Jr., he’s also
a good bit younger than them and provides a stronger floor than
anyone in that group.
As the Patriots’ big wide receiver acquisition heading
into 2022, DeVante Parker actually delivered some impressive numbers
with the opportunities he had. Unfortunately, he hobbled his way
through a good portion of the season, missing some games and being
limited in many others, which led to him finishing with just 539
yards and three touchdowns on the year. On a per-catch basis,
though, few players in the NFL were more impressive than Parker
as his 17.4 yards per reception was among the league leaders.
While Parker has always been a player who’s capable of
delivering some huge plays from time to time, the problem has
always been consistency. Whether it’s been injuries, a lack
of interest, offensive scheming, or any other variety of excuses,
he’s only ever provided one season of actual value for fantasy
managers. That came back in 2019 when he caught 72 passes for
1,202 yards and nine touchdowns. If you remove that one standout
season, though, Parker has failed to reach 800 receiving yards
in any other year and four touchdowns is his second-best single-season
number throughout his seven-year career.
Parker is a player who will be selected near the end of the draft
in most leagues, but he’s an extremely frustrating player
to have on your roster as a fantasy manager and not likely one
who you’ll ever really feel comfortable with slotting into
your starting lineup.
A gigantic nine-touchdown season in 2021 had many fantasy managers
hoping that we were seeing the beginnings of another trustworthy
top-level fantasy TE1. That certainly didn't happen in 2022, though,
as the Patriots’ tight end caught just 41 passes for 509
yards and two scores. Part of the reason for his drop-off in production
can be attributed to the unfortunate situation he was in with
the Patriots needing help protecting their quarterbacks, which
led to Henry being asked to block significantly more in 2022 than
he did in previous seasons.
Things didn’t really get much better throughout this offseason
and with Jonnu Smith gone, it’s reasonable to think that
Henry may be asked to block even more now that their TE2 is notoriously
terrible blocker Mike Gesicki.
It’s hard to really be excited about anyone in this Patriots
passing game, but the tight end position as a whole is ugly throughout
the league. There’s always a chance that Henry sneaks back
into the low-end TE1 conversation due to a high touchdown efficiency,
but that really shouldn’t be relied upon and there are plenty
of other tight ends who offer similar touchdown upside in much
higher-powered offenses.
Mike Gesicki is a player who’s stayed in the good graces
of fantasy managers for far too long. Following back-to-back 700-yard
seasons with the Dolphins in 2020 and 2021, Gesicki slid back
to fantasy irrelevancy this past season when he was a complete
afterthought in the much-improved Mike McDaniel-coached Miami
offense. McDaniel recognized that Gesicki is little more than
a glorified big slot receiver who offers practically nothing as
a blocker and that meant that he didn’t even finish the
season as the team’s snap leader at tight end despite playing
in every game.
He now has a new opportunity for life in New England on a team
that is historically effective at getting production out of their
tight ends. However, he’s also in a situation where the
team has a more established traditional tight end in Hunter Henry,
along with a more productive slot receiver in JuJu Smith-Schuster.
Unless the Patriots completely stray away from their historical
offenses and start going toward a much more spread-style offense,
it’s just tough to imagine a world where Gesicki gets enough
opportunities to be fantasy-relevant unless there’s an injury
to Henry and/or Smith-Schuster.
Even if he does end up playing way more snaps than can reasonably
be projected, Gesicki has never truly been a difference-making
fantasy tight end anyway. His best single season came back in
2020 when he caught 53 passes for 703 yards and six touchdowns.
That’s probably the absolute best-case scenario that can
be hoped for out of a player like him and his floor is close to
what he did with the Dolphins this past season where he was completely
worthless other than the one game where he caught two touchdowns.
