New England Patriots: Julian Edelman Week 1 Outlook

There was once some concern that New England Patriots No. 1 wide receiver Julian Edelman would be questionable for the team’s Week 1 battle against the Pittsburgh Steelers, as Edelman has been nursing an ankle injury throughout the preseason. However, Edelman didn’t appear on the team’s practice injury report yesterday, and it’s clear that he’s locked in to play against a weak Steelers pass defense.

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Perhaps the lone threat to Edelman’s chances of a strong performance this week is the presence of cornerback Brandon Boykin, who is one of the NFL’s premier slot cornerbacks. With “X” receiver Brandon LaFell on the reserve/PUP, Edelman and tight end Rob Gronkowski will be counted on to shoulder the pass-catching load after the Reggie Wayne signing flopped even quicker than expected.

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Edelman and Danny Amendola will be the team’s top two receivers on Thursday night with Aaron Dobson and Chris Harper earning some looks, but since the heart of the Patriots passing offense will run through players who are at their best over the middle of the field, Boykin and star inside linebacker Ryan Shazier will have their hands full against slot WRs, TEs, and pass-catching running backs.

With 105 and 92 receptions in each of the past two seasons, Edelman isn’t the type of guy who gets shut out of games, and he literally had just one game last season with less than four receptions. The 29-year-old caught at least six passes in a game on nine occasions, and he finished off the regular season in fantastic form with 33 receptions in the team’s final four games before being one of the most impressive players in the Super Bowl.

Since LaFell is out and feature back LeGarrette Blount will be serving his suspension on Thursday, expect Tom Brady to work his almost-telepathic connection with both Gronk and Edelman. The latter is obviously a good bet to lead the team in receptions after being the team’s leader in that stat in each of the past two seasons. He won’t generate many big plays after averaging just 10.1 and 10.6 yards per reception in each of the past two seasons, but the Steelers won’t be able to prevent him from methodically picking them apart on short routes.

It will be interesting to see how often Brady targets Edelman and Amendola, because it’s unclear just how much the latter will be a part of their gameplan. Amendola has been quietly impressive whenever he’s been healthy enough to play, but the Patriots generally keep his role to a minimum out of fear that he will be injured. It almost seems like they’ve saved him for key situations in each of the past two seasons, where his route-running and exceptional quickness shine.

After averaging 6.6 receptions per game last season, Julian Edelman has firmly entrenched himself as one of the game’s grittiest chain-movers, and the only player on the Steelers defense with a prayer at stopping him on a consistent basis is Boykin. But since it’s extremely unlikely for the Steelers to shadow Edelman (it’s a waste of time to shadow cover that style of a receiver), he should be able to rack up the receptions.

A seven-reception, 75-yard performance with no touchdowns seems like a safe projection for Edelman against a favorable opponent, and a high rate of targets with LaFell and Blount out could push his numbers up to 9/100/1.

Edelman is a worthy fantasy play this week, but the only way he has a strong fantasy performance is if he gets targeted heavily enough. That seems realistic, though nobody will be counting on him breaking a big play or scoring a touchdown. While both outcomes are certainly possible with LaFell out- thus allowing Edelman to put on different hats as a receiver, particularly when it comes to doing work on the outside- the red zone targets seemed almost destined to go to Scott Chandler and Rob Gronkowski on Thursday.

That said, I do like his upside as a fantasy play, because, as I alluded to in the above paragraph, no healthy receiver on the New England Patriots is better-equipped to win on the outside and win downfield. Dobson has the better “X” skill-set, a bigger catch radius, and much more vertical speed, but he has, quite frankly, been a terrible receiver thus far in his career. Perhaps he will breakout in his third season, but I’m sure Brady trusts Edelman to make the plays, particularly against a Steelers secondary that is littered with holes.

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