As for the WEAPONZ argument, I will be interested to see what happens with Thornton in year two. As Patriots fans, we are kind of accustomed to receiver picks we were high on at draft time becoming busts. But as much as we spent all offseason debating whether Patricia was the reason Mac struggled in year 2, the same may well be true of Thornton. All we’ve seen of him is a few preseason snaps (where he looked really good) and a bunch of games where he looked out of sorts, but so did the whole offense by that point.
If Thornton can actually provide that speed over the top consistently (or even sporadically), the field opens up for Mac in a way it never really did last year.