Josh Gordon broke the mold in his brief time with the New England Patriots, becoming one of the rare mid-season trade acquisitions to pay immediate dividends in Foxboro.
And a lot of his success has to do with wide receivers coach Chad O’Shea. Before being suspended by the NFL for violating the terms of his reinstatement, Gordon caught 40 passes for 720 yards and three touchdowns in 11 games with New England.
While his time working with the 27-year-old was brief, O’Shea had nothing but positive things to say about Gordon.
“As a group and myself personally, we enjoyed working with Josh,” O’Shea said Monday, via WEEI’s Ryan Hannable. “He came to work every day and tried to do what we asked him to do. I appreciate all his hard work that he put in here and I appreciate the production he had on the field. It was an enjoyable process for us to take a new player like we’ve taken a lot of new players and tried to get him to learn the system. That is always a challenging, but also a rewarding process for everybody involved. Not just myself, but the receivers who know the offense and take a player that is new and get him up to speed in knowing the offense. I think everybody always takes pride in that. That was no different than with Josh being a new player here and we’ve had other new players who have come in and tried to learn the system. It has been rewarding.”
The first game without Gordon wasn’t a good showing for the passing attack as a whole. Quarterback Tom Brady struggled mightily against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday and fielded questions about the health of his knee following the win. As for the Patriots’ wide receivers, only Julian Edelman (six catches for 70 yards and a touchdown) made an impact.
So, how do the Patriots try and replace Gordon’s production with Chris Hogan, Cordarrelle Patterson and Phillip Dorsett?
“Everybody is different,” O’Shea said. “Josh had certain skill sets and certain things that he had that maybe the next guy doesn’t have. Maybe the next guy has some stuff that Josh didn’t have, so each player has a role and we have always looked at each week that is very unique to itself. It is our job as coaches each week to put the game plan together and put ourselves in a position to utilize the skills and the strengths of our players. That won’t change at all with the group we have. They can all do some really good things and we’re excited to have the group in there.”
The Patriots hope their passing attack can begin to click Sunday against the New York Jets or their playoff run might be shorter than expected.
