Tom Brady is used to the carousel of receivers in New England. The Patriots’ trade for Josh Gordon and the departure of Corey Coleman makes 28 transactions at the position just this year, Adam Schefter of ESPN reports.
Gordon, 27, arrives after finally wearing out his welcome in Cleveland.
In the season opener this season, Gordon made only one catch for 17 yards. He had 180 catches for 3,106 yards and 16 touchdowns in 41 career games for the Browns.
“Well, we’ve had quite a few roster moves the first couple of weeks of the season with receiver,” Brady said on Westwood One Radio, via Ryan Hannable of WEEI. “I am going to do what I have done the last couple of weeks and just try and work with whoever is there, and see if they can come in and make an impact and make a role on this team. It is really up to the individual what kind of role they can carve out for themselves. That is kind of how I feel.
“I am not making — I hate to make projections and expectations. That’s not fair and I have never met Josh personally, just like I hadn’t met some of the guys who have come in the last couple of weeks. We’ll see how it goes this week. Hopefully he can work hard, put the team first and end up helping us in any role he can find for himself on the team.”
Brady, 41, was asked how long it takes to develop trust with a receiver.
“It depends. It is play-by-play, day-by-day, week-by-week, and you can’t skip steps,” he said. “I always think trust is whatever wide receiver is out there. You tell them to run a certain route, and they run it the way you talked about. The ball is thrown; it’s caught; it’s a positive play, and then you do it again. If it is a flip of the coin and 50/50, sometimes it is right; sometimes it’s wrong. I mean, nobody can really depend on that. Coaches don’t want to see that; the players don’t want to see that.
“You want to know that the guys you are lining up next to that they’ve got it. They’ve got their assignment; they’ve got their responsibility taken care of. That frees you up to think about what your responsibilities are. If you are worried about this guy, that guy, this or that, it just takes away from what your focus needs to be as an individual. Everybody wants good teammates that can focus on as an individual what they have to do in order to help the team. If you can get 11 guys to focus on just what their job is because they trust the people next to them, I think that is what makes great offense.”
The Patriots passed for only 220 yards in Sunday’s loss to the Jaguars. Only three wideouts caught passes with Phillip Dorsett catching five for 44, Chris Hogan three for 42 and Cordarrelle Patterson three for 18.
