Practice stats are not the best way of interpreting how NFL player’s will perform during an actual game. But it’s strong gauge, and really the only one when certain players don’t play very much or at all in the preseason. That is why Tom Brady’s passing stats in practice are very telling.
Here are the Patriots’ quarterback’s numbers through the first three weeks of camp, courtesy of Jeff Howe of The Athletic.
Brady’s practice stats plainly detail what we expect the wide receiver group to look like once the 53-man roster is finalized. Jakobi Meyers, Phillip Dorsett, Braxton Berrios, Maurice Harris, and N’Keal Harry have been the top-5 performers in camp and in the first preseason game. Adding Julian Edelman into the mix would make it six receivers, which would likely be the max number of wideouts New England would hold on their regular season roster.
Dontrelle Inman has struggled, and Gunner Olszewski, Damoun Patterson and Ryan Davis up until this point haven’t come close to competing with those top-5 aforementioned receivers. If cuts were to happen today, they would be the four receivers removed from the roster. Though there is still three games left to play in the preseason, those four guys will have to showout in a major way for the remaining days of August if they want to even sniff a roster spot with the Patriots.
