Coming off their loss to the Baltimore Ravens in the 2012 AFC Championship game, the Patriots were still feeling very good about their prospects for the future.
They were in the process of building a young defensive core to carry them for several years, starting with then rookies Dont’a Hightower and Chandler Jones, and soon to be added Jamie Collins.
And on offense, with the departure of Wes Welker and the addition of the younger Danny Amendola still to come, the team felt very comfortable about its arsenal of weapons for Tom Brady.
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After all, they still had Aaron Hernandez, one of the brightest, most prolific young stars in the game, alongside fellow soon-to-be superstar Rob Gronkowski. The Pats were all-in on continuing to build and cultivate the entire offensive operation around the twin tight ends.
Even though they technically brought in Amendola to replace Welker, the actual replacement was Hernandez. Throughout his first three years in the league, the former University of Florida product showed an aptitude for producing from a variety of spots throughout the Patriots’ offense. First with Bill O’Brien and then Josh McDaniels calling the plays, Hernandez would line up everywhere, from the slot to the backfield to split out wide to his hand on the ground like a traditional tight end.
Hernandez busted out with 79 catches for 910 yards and seven touchdowns in the Patriots’ Super Bowl season of 2011. Alongside Gronk’s mind-boggling 90 catches, 1,327 yards and league-leading 17 TDs, it’s clear that Bill Belichick and the rest of the team’s decision makers could foresee the duo dominating for years.
Both players dealt with setbacks due to injuries in 2012. Hernandez missed six games and his numbers decreased fairly dramatically due to his absence, coming in at 51 catches for 483 yards and five scores for the year. And we all remember Gronkowski’s twice broken arm. But the Patriots were clearly comfortable with both players, with the mega contract extensions each received prior to the year as evidence. With Welker gone, as long as both Hernandez and Gronkowski were each at full strength, the offense wouldn’t miss a beat.
Then came the morning of June 26, 2013.
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It goes without saying that the events of that day and all of the alleged activity leading up to it represent as dark a time in in the history of the Patriots’ franchise as any. And that doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of the horror and devastation experienced by the families, friends and loved ones of the victims.
From purely a football standpoint, the Patriots’ offense would no longer resemble the runaway train into which it was being built. While they would still wind up the league’s No. 3 scoring unit in 2013, it took a major redesign mostly on the fly to reach that point with Hernandez in jail. Belichick went receiver-crazy in the 2013 draft and offseason, taking Aaron Dobson in the second round and Josh Boyce in the fourth to supplement both Amendola and holdover Julian Edelman. But with Welker gone and Gronkowski coming back slowly, Hernandez was supposed to be the key.
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Remember, this is a guy who dropped all the way to the fourth round of the 2010 draft due to character concerns. Neither his talent nor his ability were even in question, especially considering the fact that at UF, he built up a sterling resume on the field with none other than Tim Tebow charged with throwing him the ball.
The Patriots were willing to take a flier despite the red flags Hernandez generated as a Gator, and he made them look good for those first three years. They thanked him in the form of that brand, spanking new contract. Five years, $12.5 million to sign, $16 million guaranteed and $40 million max in additional dollars. His gratitude did not go unnoticed.
Actions speak louder than words, of course, which is why when Hernandez was arrested, the Patriots wasted zero time walking away. And with barely a month before training camp, the remaking of the offense began.
Not at all unexpectedly, the transition proved difficult and took time. The 2013 season got off to a very slow start statistically and although the Patriots finished the first month a perfect 4-0, clear issues existed.
Suddenly, Brady’s most familiar target was Edelman, who came into the season with four career touchdown catches in four seasons, and never more than 37 catches in any one year (2009). In 2010 and 2011 he had seven and four catches respectively. Amendola and Shane Vereen had big games in Week 1 against Buffalo, but both were injured in the process and missed multiple weeks. Dobson debuted in Week 2 against the Jets. While he snagged a 39-yard TD catch, passes were clanging off his hands and chest and whizzing past where he was supposed to be—as opposed to where he actually was—at an alarming rate. Add to that the 10 sacks in the first three weeks of the year, and Brady’s uneasiness and unfamiliarity with what he now had to work with represented real problems.
Things finally started to look somewhat normal between Weeks 3 and 4, when Thompkins established himself as a target Brady trusted with three TDs – including the game winner in Week 4 against Atlanta. Edelman had officially taken over the Welker/Troy Brown role with 34 catches in those first four games. But the offense remained a work in progress throughout the season with Amendola and Dobson dealing with injuries throughout the year, Gronkowski returning in Week 7 then going down again in Week 14 and the move to a predominantly power run attack after that.
It took the Patriots until this season—Week 5, also known as the famous “we’re on to Cincinnati” game—to really get clicking on offense post-Hernandez. And it took a combination of Gronkowski finally being healthy, the import and integration of Brandon LaFell, who took nearly a month to get comfortable, and trading Logan Mankins to Tampa Bay for tight end Tim Wright just to give the team the flexibility to use the same two tight end-pronged attack they’d so prolifically employed before Hernandez’s release.
A year and a half and three players – four if you count Amendola and his occasional contributions – were what it took for the Patriots to fully replace Aaron Hernandez and get their offense back to a championship caliber level. The impact of his situation, while nowhere near as serious in nature as was the case away from the game, still cost the Patriots—both in time and manpower—in a major way.
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