Julian Edelman Out

Julian Edelman is currently injured and inactive for the New England Patriots. With having him out, Tom Brady has his best receiver missing. Julian is Brady’s top target in the receiving core and without him, the receiving talent drops off a bit with respect to Danny Amendola and Rob Gronkowski. After Amendola, the targets and receiving yards go down a bit.(142 less yards and 14 less targets). So for the patriots to get rolling again, the chemistry between Brady and his receivers needs to strengthen.

Since the Patriots have lost Julian Edelman they have also lost four out of their last six games. With injuries occurring all over the place with Amendola and even Gronk, the Patriots have seen a drastic change in their offense. Giving Tom Brady three less great targets at times is hard to utilize Brady’s full potential game play to lead their team to where they could truly go.

This year, with only nine games played, Edelman has sixty-one receptions, eighty-eight targets, six hundred and ninety-two yards. Last year, playing fourteen games had ninety two receptions, one hundred and thirty five, and nine hundred and seventy two yards. Although he’s definitely getting better and would have far more yards and receptions, this just goes to show what kind of loss the Patriots are taking by him being out.

The good news is, is that Edelman will be returning to the team coming up on the first round of playoffs against again the Kansas City Chiefs. This is great because even with the Patriots loss of Edelman, they have kept their receiving yards and completion percentage above Kansas City’s receiving yards and pass completion percentage. Going back to injuries, luckily again, the Patriots will be at full strength while the Chief’s will be missing their number one player offensive players as well, Jamaal Charles. So Patriots have that upper hand.

Many people would agree that the Patriots have the best receiving core in the league (when full strength). With the whole team back together for the rest of the post season, they have a really good chance of repeating this year with the amount of threats they have on their offence. With a big win this coming Saturday, the Patriots will be going against either the Broncos or the Steelers for a second AFC Championship in two years.