Jakobi Meyers – Syndication Server

Robert Kraft makes stunning Jakobi Meyers admission in recent interview

Robert Kraft said what every Patriots fan was thinking last offseason

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft didn’t shy away from admitting the team made a mistake by letting Jakobi Meyers walk in free agency in 2023.

Meyers spent the first four seasons of his career with New England, before becoming an impact player for the Las Vegas Raiders. He recorded 71 receptions for 807 yards and eight touchdowns last season, after signing a three-year, $33 million dollar contract with Las Vegas.

By comparison, New England signed wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster to the same base contract last year. Smith-Schuster struggled in a year where he recorded only 29 catches for 260 yards and a touchdown.

Kraft appeared on “The Shop” with Paul Rivera and Maverick Carter. Davante Adams was a guest on the show and brought up Meyers, which prompted the admission from Kraft, as transcribed by NESN.com’s Sean T. McGuire.

“The thing is, I’m learning in so many different ways,” said Adams. “Like I’m learning from new guys, like I’m learning from Jakobi (Meyers) this year like so much that I didn’t know before.”

Kraft interrupted: “We shouldn’t have let him go.”

One has to wonder how things would have turned out if Meyers stayed in New England.

Inconsistent quarterback play would probably have hampered his production. However, familiarity would have been an asset for a Patriots wide receiver unit that struggled greatly last season.

What Condition the Position is in: Assessing Raiders level of need at WR ahead of free agency

What Condition Raiders Position is in: wide receiver

With free agency under a month away, it’s time to check in on the Raiders’ wide receiver position to give it a condition of either Strong, Stable, Unstable, Serious, or Critical.

Starters: Davante Adams, Jakobi Meyers, Hunter Renfrow

Depth: Tre Tucker, DJ Turner, Kristian Wilkerson

Free Agents: DeAndre Carter

Adams had a down year with the Raiders due in large part to the QB situation. But keep in mind a down year for Adams is still better than the best year for most receivers. Meyers enjoyed a career year while Adams was dragging coverage away from him. Renfrow had his second poor season in Josh McDaniels’s offense that forgot he existed. Tucker flashed late in his rookie season and could be one to watch.

Condition: Strong

Adams is still one of the best in the game and getting a QB with an arm and pocket presence will bear that out. Meyers proved he is a worthy number two starter. The prevailing thinking is that the team will be moving on from Renfrow, opting for the cap money it would save. His departure would only drop the condition to Stable, mainly because the team likes the speedy Tucker to step up in that case, so they’d still be ok.

WR Jakobi Meyers criticizes Patriots for handling of Mac Jones

Jakobi Meyers is coming to the defense of his former quarterback, Mac Jones.

Former New England Patriots wide receiver Jakobi Meyers was not afraid to call out his former organization for not putting quarterback Mac Jones in a good position to succeed.

Meyers was taken by New England as an undrafted rookie free agent in 2019. He was around for the end of the Tom Brady era, one year with Cam Newton and two years with Jones, before signing a free-agent deal with the Las Vegas Raiders in 2023.

He recorded 71 catches for 807 yards and a career-high eight touchdowns with the Raiders. His best NFL season came with Jones at quarterback in 2021, when he hauled in 83 receptions for 866 yards.

Meyers wasn’t afraid to call out his former team for not putting the right talent around their franchise quarterback.

“Honestly, man, I really don’t like it,” Meyers told NBC Sports Boston’s Phil Perry, as transcribed by Boston.com’s Conor Ryan. “And this isn’t a knock on Zap (Bailey Zappe), because Zap is a dog too. I like my boy, I’m happy he’s doing well too. But man, how that went down with Mac, I kind of watched it all unfold the last couple of years and I feel like you could’ve seen it a couple years ago and tell that it would end up bad.

“I don’t like singling people out, but I think they had to meet him a little bit more. ‘Cause I know he’s in the building working. I can’t name too many people working harder than him. I hate to see it for him, I really do.”

Meyers’ points aren’t coming out of thin air.

The lack of quality offensive talent is something many have noticed during Jones’ tenure in New England. However, the good news is the Patriots have an opportunity to turn things around with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft and a bunch of cash to spend in free agency.

Tough decisions lie ahead, but the right choices could position New England better for the future.

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4 blockbuster trade packages teams could offer Patriots for No. 3 pick

If the Patriots decide to trade back, here are four potential draft day trade packages for the No. 3 pick

The New England Patriots have a good problem on their hands with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft. There are no surefire ways to go when deciding what to do with a pick that could impact their franchise for years to come.

They could stand pat and take one of the top-three quarterbacks on the board, which includes Caleb Williams, Drake Maye and Jayden Daniels. The team could also use the No. 3 pick and other draft assets to move up to No. 1 overall, assuming the Chicago Bears would be willing to trade back.

And then there’s the least loved, but perhaps more effective, strategy of trading down and accumulating more picks and players to facilitate a rebuild.

The Patriots aren’t going to suddenly morph back into perennial playoff contenders overnight. It’s clearly going to take more than one year for the team to fix the myriad of personnel issues on the roster.

Today, we’re exploring four trade packages from four possible suitors that could be offered to the Patriots for the No. 3 overall draft pick.

Raiders 2023 Season Ballers

Can you believe it’s been just over a week since the Raiders season ended? It seems like a lot longer than that considering how much discussion there has been about the direction of the team moving forward. But, yes, this time last week we were …

But, yes, this time last week we were detailing the Ballers & Busters from the season finale. And that means it’s officially time to round up the season’s Ballers and the season’s Busters for the final account.

As the name goes, we begin with the Ballers.

Raiders 2023 season awards: Rookie of the Year, MVP, Breakout Player, more

It’s the week for All Pro teams. But while those teams compare players across the league to each other, around these parts we tend to focus on just the Raiders. Which brings us to our 2023 Raiders season awards.

Ballers & Busters for Raiders Week 18 win over Broncos

For the fourth straight season, the Raiders complete the sweep of the Broncos. That’s right, the Las Vegas Raiders have never lost to the Broncos.

Watch: Raiders strike first vs Broncos with Jakobi Meyers trick play

Through one quarter, the Raiders are up 7-0 nothing on the visiting Broncos. That’s because, first of all, their defense is doing their thing, holding the Broncos to one first down on their first two possessions. And then because the offense put on a 13-play drive that took over eight minutes off the clock.

The drive went 78 yards and it was was capped off by a trick play that looked for a moment like it failed, but Jakobi Meyers improvised to score anyway.

Got'em ✌️#DENvsLV | 📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/KD5doZdRCY

— Las Vegas Raiders (@Raiders) January 7, 2024

Prior to this drive, the two teams had a combined 12 yards of offense as both defenses were playing as advertised. The Raiders offense got things going first. We’ll see if the Broncos can answer as the second quarter begins.

Ballers & Busters for Raiders Week 16 win over Chiefs

A month ago the Chiefs boat raced the Raiders in Las Vegas to go 8-3 on the season take a commanding lead in the AFC Playoff race. At that time, it seemed you could chalk up another win for the Chiefs when the Raiders came to Arrowhead on Christmas Day.

Since then things have taken a turn for both teams. The Chiefs have been very beatable and the Raiders defense has been extremely stingy and opportunistic.

These teams collided on that same trajectory and the result was a stunner with the Raiders defense almost singlehandedly taking down Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs 20-14.

Ballers & Busters for Raiders Week 15 rout of Chargers

Ballers & Busters for Raiders Week 14 route of Chargers

What an insane game this was. Four days earlier, the Raiders were shut out 3-0 by the Vikings. Then they come out in this one and not only score a touchdown on their opening drive, not only score 21 points in the first quarter, not only go up 42-0 in the first half, not only scored 49 points before the Chargers scored for the first time, but scored a franchise record 63 points in a 63-21 trouncing of the Chargers.

That was one heck of a run-on sentence.

So, you might just see a heavy dose of Ballers this week. I wasn’t even sure there’d be a Buster, but in the end I found one. But just one.