Does Troy Brown Deserve More Blame For Patriots’ Wideout Struggles?

Patriots wide receivers are asked to do two things above all else: get open and catch the ball. Most of them haven’t been doing much of either this season.

As their position coach, Troy Brown said the blame for those struggles ultimately falls on him.

“It’s getting open and catching the ball,” Brown said Tuesday when asked about his unit’s rash of costly drops. “Obviously, I’m coaching the receivers, so I will take the blame for that. That’s on me. I’ve got to do a better job of getting them prepared and playing situational football better.”

During Sunday’s loss to the Washington Commanders, JuJu Smith-Schuster had a pass bounce off his hands for a game-sealing interception, and Jalen Reagor dropped a well-placed deep ball from Mac Jones that might have gone for a touchdown.

It was an all-around dismal performance from a receiving corps that’s lacked high-end talent all season and now, with top target Kendrick Bourne done for the season with a torn ACL, looks like the worst in the NFL.

No non-Bourne New England wideout ranks higher than 90th in the league in receptions or 80th in receiving yards entering Week 10, with sixth-round rookie Demario Douglas leading in both categories. The current position group as a whole (Douglas, DeVante Parker, Smith-Schuster, Reagor, Tyquan Thornton and Kayshon Boutte) has fewer receiving yards than 12 individual NFL pass-catchers.

“I think the obvious thing is that nobody wants to be 2-7,” Brown said, referring to the Patriots’ shockingly poor record. “I don’t think anybody here, coaches or players, want to be in that situation. So it is what it is. I will say if I’m disappointed in anybody, it would be myself, not having our guys ready to go to play at a high level.

“But we go out there and we compete, we play hard, and we leave a few plays here, a few plays there. If we could just make them, it would be the difference in the game for us.”

That’s true. In addition to the aforementioned misses in Sunday’s game, Parker had a brutal drop late in a loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, and Boutte failed to get both feet down in bounds on a last-minute fourth down against the Philadelphia Eagles (and hasn’t seen the field since).

“We’ve got to make the critical play when we need to make them,” Brown said. “That’s the difference in most of the games we’ve had this year so far. It’s come down to one-score games, last opportunities, and we’ve got to find a way to get better at closing out football games.”

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It can be difficult to separate talent from coaching when evaluating on-field performance. The Patriots’ receiving corps clearly has been hurt by regrettable roster decisions, from using recent early-round picks on N’Keal Harry and Tyquan Thornton to choosing to swap out the reliable Jakobi Meyers for an empty-tanked Smith-Schuster, to giving Parker a contract extension after an inconsistent debut season. Nearly every legitimate NFL contender boasts at least one high-end pass-catching threat, and the Patriots haven’t had one in years.

But Brown, who’s served as the Patriots’ primary receivers coach since 2021 and has coached returners since 2020, has not been able to elevate this group.

The Patriots Hall of Famer deserves credit for developing a pair of first-team All-Pro punt returners in Gunner Olszewski (2020) and Marcus Jones (2022), but New England’s wideouts rank 22nd in receptions, 25th in receiving yards and 27th in first downs since Brown shifted over from running backs two years ago, per Radar360. Route-running, spacing and basic fundamentals have been problematic all season.

With the Patriots fielding one of the NFL’s worst offenses for the second consecutive season, coaching changes could be on the horizon. And though Brown’s resume as a Patriots player is unquestioned, it’s worth asking whether he’s the right man to lead this underperforming unit.