The New England Patriots are clearly having trouble getting rookie receiver and first-round pick N’Keal Harry on the field.
At first, he was dealing with injuries, and an ankle issue landed him on injured reserve to start the season. Since his return from IR in 2019, he has shown a different set of limitations: a limited knowledge of the playbook and a lack of readiness for NFL speed and physicality.
The latter was clear when Tom Brady targeted Harry on an simple in-route during Week 13. A Texans cornerback undercut the throw, and intercepted Brady — even with 225-pound Harry in the vicinity to make an effort to catch or deflect the target. But Harry has also flashed his potential, with an almost-touchdown in Week 14 when the officials called him out of bounds on the 3-yard line (even if he was clearly in-bounds for the touchdown).
“Certainly, he made a great individual effort, broke a tackle and then had good balance there to finish the play and give us an opportunity to score,” Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said on Wednesday. “He’s a big guy. He’s not easy to get to the ground.”
Brady dumped off the ball to Harry at the line of scrimmage. The receiver turned upfield, broke a handful of tackles on the play and fought through a would-be tackler to extend for the goal line. The receiver flashed his playmaking potential, which was evident when he was in college at ASU. And while McDaniels admitted the Patriots could probably do more of that, he didn’t seem certain they could do much more.
“Certainly, when you have players like that, it comes back to how can you get him the football in those situations understanding that there’s a level of diminishing returns if you try to keep doing the same things over and over again, meaning there’s only so many times you can hand a player that’s not a running back the ball. There’s only so many times you can throw the ball behind the line of scrimmage.” McDaniels said.
If Harry can’t run many routes beyond the line of scrimmage, the Patriots will essentially treat him like a gadget player. They’ll occasionally design plays to get the ball in his hands, but most of their brainpower will go toward players like receiver Julian Edelman and running James White, who are already engrained in the offense. Still, McDaniels took some blame for Harry’s small touch total in his rookie season. Harry has 111 snaps with five receptions for 40 yards and a touchdown.
“I need to do a better job of finding ways to get him in space, get him the ball and letting him have an opportunity to do those things,” McDaniels said.
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