Silver Linings Hard To Come By, But Patriots' Experience Without Gronkowski Provides A Positive
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Not that it necessarily needs to be said, but just to be clear: No team gets better when losing Rob Gronkowski.
But, unfortunately for the Patriots, every now and then, losing Gronkowski is a part of the package. The mammoth tight end, as you've surely heard by now, is going to be out for the foreseeable future, with back surgery scheduled for Friday.
This is, any way you slice it, a net negative for a Patriots offense that currently ranks sixth in the NFL in points and yards per game. But the search for a silver lining or two is not entirely fruitless in this particular case.
To start, compare the feeling today to the one felt last year when Gronkowski needed a cart to take him off the field in Denver. In that very moment, the predominant feeling in New England was that the season, for all intents and purposes, was over. Done. Fin. See ya later.
And with good reason. Consider this: Gronkowski alone accounted for 19.1 percent of the Patriots' total offensive targets last year. On 629 pass attempts, 120 were thrown in Gronkowski's direction. That was far and away most on the team, with Julian Edelman being the second-most targeted receiver with 88. Accordingly, Gronkowski's 1,176 receiving yards were nearly double the next leading receiver's total (Edelman, 692), and Gronkowski's 11 touchdowns likewise led the team. He was, in so many ways, the epicenter of the passing attack.
And of course, the season didn't end that night in Denver, because it turned out that Gronkowski was just fine. He returned two weeks later and was back to his normal self, and he was again Brady's main target in the team's two postseason games. Against Kansas City, Gronkowski led the Patriots in targets (8), receptions (7), yards (83) and touchdowns (2). Against Denver, he was targeted 15 times (second on the team to James White's 16) and led the team in receptions (8) and yards (144). He also scored the team's only receiving touchdown.
Last year, Gronkowski was damn near everything for the Patriots offense.
This year, not so much.
For a handful of reasons (missing two games to start the year, Jacoby Brissett at quarterback for two games, missing the San Francisco game and most of the Jets game), Gronkowski has not nearly been the same focus for the offense as he's been in years past. Thus far, he's accounted for just 10.2 percent of the team's total targets. On 371 passing attempts, just 38 have been thrown to No. 87.
The 10.2 percent of targets is the lowest mark Gronkowski has had since his rookie season of 2010. Even in the seasons when he missed multiple games due to injuries, Gronkowski accounted for more of the team's total targets. He missed five games in 2012 and still accounted for 12.3 percent of the team's total targets. He missed nine games in 2011 and still accounted for 10.7 percent of the team's total targets.
In 2011, he accounted for 20.3 percent of the team's targets. That's a major reason why the offense struggled so mightily in the Super Bowl with a clearly hobbled Gronkowski limping up and down the field. Tom Brady had grown so accustomed to targeting Gronkowski with ease that year that he felt comfortable enough to throw a jump ball, which is hulking tight end was supposed to easily outleap Chase Blackburn for a huge gain. But Gronk was not Gronk, and the offense was not the offense, and it ultimately proved costly.
The Patriots' offense as a whole is better equipped for the loss of Gronkowski this year, in part due to the personnel employed and in part due to the philosophy of the offense. Back when Gronkowski was paired with Aaron Hernandez, the offense focused on the tight ends first, as evidenced by tight ends accounting for an imbalanced 38.7 percent of the team's targets in 2011. Obviously, when the team relies that heavily on tight ends to shoulder the load, losing Gronkowski's effectiveness was going to hurt in a major way.
This year, the Garoppolo/Brissett/Brady trio has targeted tight ends on a more reasonable 24.8 percent of passes. That's the lowest percentage since 2013, when Hernandez was no longer a part of the picture.
Of course, that's not to say that the evolution of the offense to downplay the role of Gronkowski has been intentional. Quite the opposite. If Bill Belichick had his druthers over the past few months, Gronkowski probably would have been the most-targeted player who would also lead the team in receptions, yards and touchdowns. Injuries have prevented that, which is not great news.
What is a positive, though, is that the Patriots have already proven to be more adaptable this year without Gronkowski. They're obviously not running a 2007 powerhouse type of offense, but they've put up 30.3 points per game since Brady returned to the field in Week 5. (A 30.3 points per game average over the course of the whole season would rank third in the NFL and first in the AFC.)
This scenario isn't what the Patriots would prefer. They will be able to get by, win games, and perhaps even lock up home field throughout the postseason. When it comes to fourth-and-10, on the road in the AFC title game, it's going to be a lot more difficult to execute that 40-yard completion up the seam. Likewise, when it comes to fourth-and-goal at the 4-yard line, they'll all have to work harder to score that touchdown.
Yet in already living without Gronkowski for, really, six out of 11 games so far in 2016, they've already gotten a head start on adapting.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
