Yesterday, I looked at the evolving Patriots offensive line under Tom Brady in the 9 years that New England has made the Super Bowl. Today, I want to look at the team’s receiving game.
The 2001-2004 Patriots passing attack was based around six players: Troy Brown, David Patten, Deion Branch, and David Givens at wide receiver, Daniel Graham at tight end, and the always dependable Kevin Faulk as the pass-catching back. Brown was the superstar in ’01, while Graham/Givens/Branch weren’t around that year but were big parts of the ’03 and ’04 teams.
The 2007 team was a bit of an outlier, in part because New England didn’t make the Super Bowl in the two years before or the three years after. Randy Moss, Donte’ Stallworth, Jabar Gaffney, and Ben Watson only appeared in one Super Bowl for New England: Super Bowl XII. The two notable players on the ’07 Patriots and other Super Bowl teams were Kevin Faulk (who was in New England forever, and was still the team’s top receiving back in ’07) and Wes Welker, who was a star on both the ’07 and ’11 teams.
The 2011 team brought back a familiar name: you may not recall, but Deion Branch returned to Foxboro for a second stint from 2010 to 2012. Welker was also a bridge to the past Patriots teams, but the ’11 team also had new names in tight ends Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. This passing attack was an interesting because it had Branch from the early Patriots teams, Welker from the ’07 team, and Gronk from the recent Super Bowl teams (and Hernandez, the most unique case on the list).
By 2014, other than Gronkowski, the passing attack had turned over again. The 2014-2018 Patriots were basically Gronk, Julian Edelman (who had 34 receiving yards for the ’11 Patriots), and a rotating crew:
- In 2014, those ancillary players were Brandon LaFell, Shane Vereen, Tim Wright, and Danny Amendola.
- The ’16 team had Martellus Bennett, James White, Chris Hogan, Malcolm Mitchell, and Danny Amendola.
- The ’17 team had Brandin Cooks, Danny Amendola, James White, Chris Hogan, Rex Burkhead, and Dion Lewis.
- This year’s team had James White, Josh Gordon, Chris Hogan, Phillip Dorsett, and Cordarrelle Patterson.
If you had to pick a core four from the the ’14–’18 teams, it was Gronk and Edelman (other when they were injured) and then White and Hogan, joined by LaFell in ’14, Bennett in ’16, Amendola in ’17, and White in ’18.
Let’s look at this on a percentage basis. I calculated the amount of Adjusted Catch Yards by each Patriots player in each of New England’s Super Bowl seasons. Adjusted Catch Yards is simply Receiving Yards, plus a 5-yard bonus for each reception and a 20-yard bonus for each touchdown. Then, I calculated the percentage of ACY by each player in each year. For example, Brown had 34% of all New England ACY in 2001, Moss had 31% of all New England ACY in ’07, and so on.
The graph below shows the ACY percentage for each Patriots player in each of the team’s 9 years, among the 20 players to have at least 10% of New England’s ACY in any of the 9 Super Bowl seasons.
Finally, here are the top players by year:
2001: Troy Brown (34%), David Patten (21%), Kevin Faulk (7%)
2003: Deion Branch (20%), David Givens (14%), Troy Brown (13%), Kevin Faulk (12%), Daniel Graham (12%)
2004: David Givens (21%), David Patten (20%), Deion Branch (12%), Daniel Graham (11%), Kevin Faulk (7%)
2007: Randy Moss (31%), Wes Welker (24%), Donte’ Stallworth (13%), Jabar Gaffney (9%), Ben Watson (9%), Kevin Faulk (8%)
2011: Wes Welker (29%), Rob Gronkowski (26%), Aaron Hernandez (18%), Deion Branch (13%)
2014: Rob Gronkowski (26%), Julian Edelman (22%), Brandon LaFell (21%), Shane Vereen (11%), Tim Wright (7%)
2016: Julian Edelman (24%), Martellus Bennett (16%), James White (14%), Chris Hogan (14%), Rob Gronkowski (10%), Malcolm Mitchell (9%)
2017: Rob Gronkowski (22%), Brandin Cooks (21%), Danny Amendola (14%), James White (11%), Chris Hogan (10%)
2018: Julian Edelman (19%), James White (19%), Josh Gordon (14%), Rob Gronkowski (14%), Chris Hogan (11%), Phillip Dorsett (7%)