New England Patriots Miss Jabar Gaffney, Unable to Fill Third Receiver Role

The NFL has changed so much that a third wide receiver could be considered a starter on some teams.

The Patriots? Not so much. They've been content for most of the season to run their bread-and-butter 12 personnel package, with one running back, two tight ends and two wide receivers. Who could blame them? It allows them to get their best playmakers on the field all at once, with tight ends Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski lined up along with receivers Deion Branch and Wes Welker.

But wouldn't it be nice to have the flexibility of a reliable third option at wideout?

And ever since Jabar Gaffney left town, that flexibility has been hard to find.

Just ask Joey Galloway, Taylor Price, Julian Edelman, Brandon Tate or Chad Ochocinco. I'm sure one of those five guys could tell you why it's been so hard.

Or maybe you could just ask Gaffney himself.

"It's a pretty tough offense," said Gaffney according to Patriots.com, "and if you're not really used to it, it can be a little overwhelming and with Bill [Belichick], he doesn't play you—if you don't know your stuff he's not going to put you out there and trust you in those situations."

It says something when proven veterans like Galloway and Ochocinco come in and simply drown in all the information, never to be heard from again.

The difficulty of the offense is also largely considered a factor in the struggles of Tate and Price, two talented young receivers that never reached their potential because they couldn't pick up the offense. Price was active for just four games in his two years with the team, and played a whopping 41 snaps in that span. Tate played just 577 snaps (45.5 percent) in his 18-game stint with the Patriots. 

"Jab could do everything well. I think that's his versatility," said Tom Brady on what made Gaffney such a good receiver. "He's got good size, he's got long arms, he's got good speed, he's got good quickness, he plays every position, he's smart. He's just one of those guys that, from the day we got him here, he was just so reliable and dependable because he knew what to do and he did it well. You gain a lot of trust from the quarterback when all those things matchup."

That chemistry is valuable to Brady and Belichick alike, and is part of what makes him so successful with Welker and Branch. But there's a mental acumen necessary to play receiver in the Pats offense, and it's the inability of the receivers to quickly pick up the complex offense and get on the same page with Brady that's caused them to struggle.

But in the end, it came down to one word: "trust."

A word that, coincidentally, was heard on the conference calls of both Brady and Gaffney.

Erik Frenz is the co-host of the PatsPropaganda and Frenz podcast. Follow Erik on Twitter.