Veteran receiver Eric Decker officially joined the Patriots on Friday, a week into the team’s training camp. And the task of learning a new offense on the fly can be as easy as changing a tire on a moving car.
Veteran receiver Chris Hogan could shrug at a newcomer who is competing for playing time and targets. Instead, Hogan plans to help Decker.
“Well, I’ve been in that position before,” Hogan told reporters on Saturday. “You know, been in different offenses and then come to a new place and you know there’s a lot of information that probably gets thrown at you at once so you just kind of have to dissect that. Whatever best ways that they do that or you know, for me it was just kind of segmenting it out. And just answering any questions that he has. So for a guy like Eric [Decker] that’s been in the league for a while now, I’m sure he has a process of learning how he learns and he’s going to go about doing that the way that he does it. Just kind of be a guy that he can come to for questions and you know, give him answers the best way I can.”
Hogan provided some specifics as to how the process of helping Decker get up to speed works.
"[W]hen you’re out there on the field and a day like today when we’re working kind of situationally and working on routes, stuff on the side, I think there’s a -- you know you can tell that maybe if he’s not going to ask a question or he’s a little unsure on how to do things, try to be that guy in that room that’s going to [say], ‘This is how Tommy wants it done or this is how we’ve been doing it in the past,’ because for someone who’s been on a couple different teams, they do it differently in different places so just kind of help him, show him the way of how we do it here.”
So how hard will it be to pick up the Patriots’ offense?
“I think it just varies by person,” Hogan said. “Some guys are going to pick it up real quick and some guys it takes longer. But I think the most important thing is to not try to absorb everything all at once and just kind of take it day by day and trust your own process. You just kind of have to stay on top of it and study.”
Decker will need to do plenty of work and study to learn the offense. And his ultimate reward could be a pink slip once Julian Edelman returns from his four-game suspension.
