Brandon LaFell was the New England Patriots big offseason signing for the team's offense. They re-signed Julian Edelman after his career-high year, but knew that would not be enough to help restart the offense for 2014 after losing players like Wes Welker and Aaron Hernandez. LaFell was very successful in Carolina and many believes that behind the arm of Tom Brady, New England would only bring bigger things for the receiver. However, after not recording a catch in Week 1, will LaFell regroup and prove himself worthy of the new contract.
Throughout training camp, Brady raved about the potential LaFell had to be a major contributor for the offense in 2014. The Patriots struggled in the absence of Welker and Hernandez causing Brady to make something out of nothing. They attempted to fix that in the offseason by signing LaFell, but a slow start did not get the wide receiver the debut he wanted.
To be fair, the entire Patriots offense struggled against the Miami Dolphins as New England fell in Week 1. LaFell was targeted six times by Brady and accumulated zero catches. He played 39 of 86 snaps while committing two penalties, one that cut short a fourth-quarter drive. The receiver notes that he has moved on from the slow start and is simply focused on improving.
"I just want to continue to get open, you know, catch the ball," LaFell said, via the Boston Herald. "Get open, catch the ball and make sure I don't have any missed assignments during the game and take care of my business on every snap. We're just continuing to work at it and go out there and practice and work on our routes and working on our communication and our timing. Hopefully it pays off in the game. It's something that we've been working on since we got here, and hopefully it shows up better this week than it did last week."
LaFell is not the only one that needs to improve. Danny Amendola did not exactly show much in his start to his second year with New England. According to Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston.com, Amendola is at risk of getting benched or demoted in favor of newly acquired tight end Tim Wright who put up just one less yard than the receiver and he has been with the team all of just two weeks.
The Patriots face off against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday and will look to improve on an all-around disappointing offensive debut for New England. Brady admits that everyone has put the loss behind them and is ready to get the season back on track.
