Curran: Have Patriots abandoned a staple of their offensive attack?

My initial reaction to Tyquan Thornton in the second round has slowly moved from this ...

... To this.

It’s an arc similar to the one experienced when the Patriots took Kyle Dugger. Initial reaction: "Who? What? Why?" Later: "I see. That makes sense." Of course, for every Dugger there’s a Joejuan Williams, but I’m meandering.

Back to the issue at hand, which is appreciating the logic behind the selection of the eye-poppingly fast Thornton while still wondering why the Patriots don’t want a true, waterbugging slot like the kind that made their offense go for 20-plus seasons.

The kind of receiver like Troy Brown, Wes Welker, Julian Edelman, Deion Branch or Danny Amendola who’s low-cut, chops his steps like a jackhammer, strings moves together and gets incredible separation with sudden change of direction. The kind of player who ran the three-cone and short shuttle in lightning time, not the 7.25 seconds and 4.39 seconds that Thornton posted.

The Patriots weren’t necessarily going to find their waterbugging/quick separating/YAC beast in the second round. As “meh” as Thornton tested in change-of-direction drills, the three wideouts taken right after him don’t have that club in their bag either.

Georgia’s George Pickens went two picks after Thornton to the Steelers at No. 52. He’s 6-foot-3, 195, ran a 4.4 and didn’t do any of the agility tests in pre-draft. Alec Pierce, who went to the Colts at 53, ran a 4.33 at 211 pounds (Thornton is 184) and was faster in agility drills than Thornton (7.13 and 4.28) but not amazing. And Skyy Moore, who went to the Chiefs at 54, ran a 4.4 and was just a touch quicker than Thornton.

Size and straight-line speed were still going off the board at that point. And the Patriots have generally unearthed their high-producing waterbugs much later than round two.

Now, you may insist the Patriots have a slot receiver. Jakobi Meyers has been playing there and producing quite nicely. But Meyers -- productive as he’s been -- isn’t nearly as quick as the slots who preceded him with a 7.07 three-cone and a 4.23 short shuttle.

By way of comparison, Edelman ran a 6.62 three-cone and a 3.92 shuttle. Inhuman quickness. Branch was 6.71 and 3.76. Amendola was 6.81 and 4.25. Welker was 7.09 and 4.01. All quicker.

And while Meyers is getting it done in terms of receptions, he broke one tackle on 83 catches last year according to the advanced stats at Pro Football Reference. He averaged 2.7 yards after the catch.

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Edelman was at 3.3 and 3.2 in 2020 and 2019. When the Patriots offense was cooking from 2013 to 2018, he was 4.5, 4.8, 4.6, 5.0 and 4.9. Edelman was targeted about 160 times per season when he was healthy. Meyers was targeted 130 times last year.

So Meyers isn’t Edelman. That’s no sin. But Kendrick Bourne, who took 172 snaps in the slot (37.1 of his reps) had a YAC average of 6.7 which was good for 32nd in the league. Not all his YAC came from the slot but the larger point stands. Meyers isn’t the prototypical slot for the Patriots. And Mac Jones could really use one, which is a point Patriots coaching legend Dante Scarnecchia made earlier this offseason when he said Jones needed a "move the chains" wideout.

"They gotta get a better supporting cast around (Mac)," Scarnecchia told Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald.  "They don’t want to hear that, but that’s the truth. Other than Jakobi Meyers, who do they got? We’ve always had that guy, a guy who moved the chains. Whether it was Wes Welker, Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola when all else failed, he was that guy. But they don’t have that guy right now."

Scarnecchia joined us on Early Edition later that week to discuss further.

"I think that all quarterbacks want that guy," Scarnecchia said. "And they are out there. They exist across the league and everyone looks for that type of guy. I mentioned three names, obviously Julian (Edelman), obviously Wes (Welker), and to a degree Danny Amendola. I could add a fourth in there in Troy Brown. I mean, he was the original guy in that group. But those are go-to guys. They're first-down guys. ... Just guys that keep the chains moving.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to disparage anybody. I think Jakobi's a really a good football player, and I also think to a degree Kendrick made his presence known. (Nelson) Agholor's been hurt and hasn't had the productivity that I'm sure he'd like to have. But the more weapons you put around these guys, the better off you're gonna be. Just take a look around the league, man. That's what it takes. You've got to put weapons around (your QB)."

Scarnecchia brought up Braxton Berrios as a "for instance." Berrios was a seventh-round pick by the Patriots in 2018. The Patriots tucked the 5-foot-9, 184-pounder on IR his rookie year then cut him at the end of what seemed to be a promising 2019 training camp. They instead kept converted corner Gunner Olszewski. Olzszewski was an All-Pro returner in 2020 but never developed here as a receiver.

Berrios was signed by the Jets in 2019 and is blossoming into a reliable slot with 83 catches and five touchdowns over the past two years. He’s averaging more than 5.5 YAC per reception. Olszewski wasn’t tendered an offer by the Patriots and signed with the Steelers. Berrios signed a two-year, $12M deal with the Jets.

It’s ironic how many of the Patriots' AFC East rivals now possess the smallish, change-of-direction, YAC receivers the Patriots tortured the division with -- Miami’s got Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle; the Bills re-signed Isaiah McKenzie for a tiny amount of money to replace Cole Beasley; the Jets have Berrios -- while the Patriots seemingly have moved on from that.

A decade ago, Bill Belichick explained in great detail the difference between a slot receiver and a wide receiver and what it takes to play in there.

"I think its a little bit of a different world in there (for a slot receiver)," Belichick said when asked if slot receiver was a simple position to fill. "There are a lot more people involved. You have linebackers, you have safeties, you have corners, sometimes defensive linemen coming out and blitzing on those. You have different combinations of coverage and it’s really important that that receiver and the quarterback see things exactly the same -- when to keep going, when to slow up, when to stop, any kind of option routes, which way to break, when to come out of it. It definitely takes some work.

"When you get into option routes and decision making, you’re just going to run five yards and run across the field and that’s fairly straightforward. But there is some, ‘Do you go over? Do you go under? Do you slow down? Do you speed up? Do you stop? Do you throttle? What are your rules? What tells you to do what?’ Most importantly, it has to be exactly what the quarterback thinks you’re going to do so you don’t go behind the linebacker when he thinks you’re going in front of him and its a bad interception, that kind of thing. I think there’s a lot to that, yeah. I think it takes a lot to play that position."

And no matter how fast Tyquan Thornton will be nor how savvy and smooth Jakobi Meyers has been, neither is the waterbug we’ve been accustomed to seeing carry the Patriots offense.