OBJ Is No Longer A Number One Receiver But His Name Will Demand Money.

Talent before name. That is one thing I hear when people talk about players in the NFL. However, with OBJ. It appears that people are just seeing his name. On top of that, in 2021 OBJ could've came to the Patriots. Instead he chose to go elsewhere and said if Brady was in New England things would've been different.

The Patriots made the playoffs and the thing that really killed them in the playoffs was not having a pass catcher really show up. OBJ could've helped the Patriots win at least one playoff game. In my opinion, If OBJ wanted to be a Patriot he would already be one.

OBJ played with Eli Manning, Baker Mayfield, and Matthew Stafford. Now I'm not going to look at OBJ's touchdowns or yards because there are varying factors that play into that. I am going to look at OBJ's seperation ranking and his true catch percentage over his last five seasons and then compare him to the Patriots receivers's last two seasons.

So as for his true catch percentage over the past five seasons, OBJ has had the following percentages.

2017: 78.1%, 2018: 84.6%, 2019: 74.7%, 2020: 76.7%, 2021: 78.6%. 2018 appears to be an anomaly.

Over those same years he was ranked the following in separation. 2017: 28, 2018: 27, 2019: 23, 2020: 25, 2021: 56.

OBJ played in 14 games in 2021, so I cannot give him a pass on his target seperation ranking for 2021 and his true catch percentage is on track with his career stats.

Now let's look at what the Patriots 2021 receivers last two seasons true catch percentage and target seperation rankings.

Nelson Agholor

2021: 92.5%, 2020: 80.0%

Kendrick Bourne

2021: 96.5%, 2020: 77.8%

Jakobi Meyers

2021: 89.2%, 2020: 90.8%

N'keal Harry

2021: 75.0%, 2020: 86.8%

Now Agholor and Bourne both increased in production with their true catch percentage, there's a chance that OBJ can but looking at his last 3 season to avoid the injury argument, OBJ catches the ball about as well as N'keal Harry. True catch is all on OBJ and he has only had one season above 80% true catch rate in his career. 

OBJ over his career has a 78.5% true catch rate, Harry over his last two seasons has a 80.9. I didn't include Harry's 2019 because he was barely targeted.

Now let's look at the target seperation rankings.

Nelson Agholor

2021: 72, 2020: 59

Kendrick Bourne

2021: 38, 2020: 52

Jakobi Meyers

2021: 65, 2020: 14

N'keal Harry

2021: 108, 2020: 72

OBJ couldn't get seperation in 2021. He was barely better than Meyers who fans went from calling a number one at the beginning of the season to a number 2 / 3 at the end. There's a chance that he could come to New England and pull a Kendrick Bourne. However, OBJ is 3 years older than Bourne and receivers tend to get slower as they age. So OBJ would most likely follow Agholor's seperation route if anything. 

Going off of his 2021 analytics, OBJ would be coming in to 2022 with N'keal Harry hands and Jakobi Meyers feet. If that screams number one to you, then continue to scream for the Patriots to shell out a boat load of money for OBJ. If it doesn't, it's understandable. OBJ is not the guy known for making the one circus catch anymore. He's no longer a number one. The Patriots have made good over the years with twos and threes. 

The question is would OBJ take number two money and accept how the Patriots would use him? Maybe I'm misjudging his character but I think his greed will send him elsewhere. Last season, maybe there were better odds of him winning a ring in L.A. but now that he's won a ring, he's playing for money because lord knows how many seasons he has left. So we'll see if he wants to play for the Patriots but I don't think he cares where he plays asong as he gets paid.