The learn the playbook must mean different things for different receivers with different skill sets, right? Like, Edelman must need to know a ton more plays to be effective than Moss, who’s still a weapon just sprinting down the field every play. Can’t a phenom like Gordon, with his size, pick up the same 10-15 plays every team runs and still get at it?
My understanding is that the Patriots, as a rule, have everyone learn everything. Kenny Britt, who is another big X-type guy,
talked about this last year:
What has been the toughest part of the playbook?
Britt: Everything, to tell you the truth. It has to do with lining up and being in different positions, which I haven’t done in my whole career. I was always just one position, the ‘X’ position. Here, they have me moving all around. It’s making things more complicated but it’s helping me learn the playbook faster than just being in one spot.
Gordon's in a little bit different boat, because the Patriots need him to contribute sooner than they did with Britt, so they might have a plan to get him going sooner.
The one way Gordon is similar to Moss and different from many of the other veteran WR additions is that he’s still in his prime. They can craft a handful (that hopefully expands as the weeks go by) of packages for him and he can go out and use his physical superiority to get the job done.
The problem with some other guys like Ocho Cinco, Reggie Wayne, etc is that they were past their prime and couldn’t rely on their talent as much anymore so they had to more fully integrate into the offense. Bill and the coaches weren’t going to create new packages for guys who weren’t gonna win the battles they needed to in order to make it worth it.
The crazy thing is that Moss was 30 when the Patriots traded for him, so he really was a couple years past his physical prime. When you see clips of him in Minnesota, he was faster then. No WR was better over the first six years of his career than Moss, but he was three-four years away from his last excellent season when 2007 rolled around (which is why they got him for a fourth).
