Ben Watson is Back Again
I’m sure Ben Watson isn’t the pass-catching, career No. 84, former Patriot that everybody wants to see coming back to Foxboro the most. But he is for me.
Mood:
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I’ll admit that it’s getting a little repetitive saying “Welcome back,” then “Good luck with your PED suspension,” then “Welcome back,” then “Goodbye,” and now “Welcome back” again to Watson every few weeks. But as long and strange as his trip to this point has been, this latest “Welcome back” is a godsend. And there’s no reason to doubt Tom Brady feels the same way.
As write this, I can hear my mother’s voice in my head telling me to be nice, so I’ll preface it by saying “with all due respect” to Ryan Izzo and Matt LaCosse. But from last year to this, the Patriots went from having the best tight end in football plus a solid No. 2 to the thinnest tight end depth in the league. In fact, I can’t ever remember one thinner. Their combined numbers speak for themselves:
Targets: 15
Receptions: 9
Yards: 169
Yards per Target: 11.2
Touchdowns: 1
Drops: 1
And those numbers scream “What do you want from us? We’re a 7th Round pick and an undrafted with 41 career catches.” That’s a good week for Rob Gronkowski, and it’s taken these guys 10 combined games to produce them. For you analytics guys, Pro Football Focus has Izzo ranked 64th and LaCosse 74th among all tight ends in receiving. At run blocking, LaCosse is 61st and Izzo is 101st. Which pretty much confirms what our eyes have been telling us.
So yeah, while ordinarily it would be hard to put too much faith in the power of a 38-year-old retiree who’s coming off a PED suspension, was a healthy scratch in Week 5 and who didn’t have a place to sit at the Cool Kid’s Table last week, any addition is welcome at this point. To recycle (another thing to make my sainted mom happy) what I said in the Knee Jerk Reactions to the Giants game:
I’d be saying this even if LaCosse wasn’t hurt, but here’s hoping when Ben Watson was let go, there were no words exchanged they can’t take back. I’d have him moved into his locker by lunch time today.
It took the weekend, but I’m glad I got my wish. Thanks to the first ever QB-TE connection with a combined age of 80, the best team in the NFL just got better.