This may sound odd..
 

but I think this team would benefit from playing a game against a bad team with Michael Thomas out with an injury or something. If next season, there was a game where MT had a minor injury and Brees was forced to focus on other receivers, I think it'd help the team a lot as far as developing receivers. MT being so good actually hurts the other receivers, because they don't get enough targets to find their comfort zone.

Re: This may sound odd..
 

Here's something really odd!!!! 5! That's odd!! :rofl:

Re: This may sound odd..
 

Even if our WR's got more work they will never be anything close to MT. Just sit back and enjoy it. Same for Brees. We aren't getting these caliber players for a while.

Re: This may sound odd..
 

I don't want them to be MT caliber, they don't need to be. As much as I love Brees, he's always had an issue with trust when it comes to receivers. I'm honestly not sure if that's a strength or a weakness, cause there is some risks involved when it comes to throwing to someone that hasn't proven themselves. Yes he will spread the ball around, but when it comes to going back and throwing to a receiver consistently... Brees has a hesitancy. He'll usually only throw to those guys when they have a large separation. You could see it with Cook at the beginning of the year. Brees trusts Cook more now, and obviously feels more comfortable throwing to him. He's starting to get to get comfortable with Tre'Quan. The reason I think we'd benefit to have a game without Thomas is Brees would be forced to throw to someone other than Thomas and could speed up the trust development he has with some of the newer receivers.

Re: This may sound odd..
 

I don't think it's so much the receivers getting better as it is Brees developing a trust in them.

Re: This may sound odd..
 

It would take a number of games to see real progress in that regard, and heck no we don't want to be without CGM for multiple games.

Re: This may sound odd..
 

Eh, I think it'd only take a game to really start throwing to them. If MT isn't there, he has to throw to someone other than him.. he'd quickly have to develop an in-game rapport. There has been so many times that a receiver has dropped a pass from Brees and it's like he doesn't want to go back to them, Brees is a perfectionist. One of the things that makes Brees so good, is actually harmful in some ways as well. Just having one game where MT isn't an option would go a long way in developing his relationship with receivers. It would force him to throw into tighter windows with players Tre'quan in the same way he does with MT. I'm not saying it would be a complete fix, but I think a lot of progress would be made. Brees had the same exact issue with Jimmy Graham. When Graham was traded, Brees started spreading the ball around a lot more. Now I definitely don't want to get rid of MT lol, but I think if you just gave him a scenario like that, it'd force those neural pathways to be developed. I feel like it'd help a lot. I don't want it to happen this year, but next year against a bad opponent would be ideal.

Re: This may sound odd..
 

Sorry, but I think you are WAY off course. Brees has always passed the ball to the open receiver. And "open" is a relative term. Thomas needs less separation than other receivers to be deemed "open". That's why he sees the ball more often. Taking Thomas away would not make the others anymore open. On the contrary, without Thomas garnering the attention the others would be more closely covered.

This isn't a Brees issue. It is an issue with the other receivers getting enough separation. Cook has been getting that separation recently, as has both Hills.

Re: This may sound odd..
 

FWIW ...

Heard on Daniel Jeremiah's Pod cast the other day ... he claims that the 2020 WR draft class is the best he's ever seen.

Take that with a grain of salt.

Re: This may sound odd..
 

They say that every year with some position group in the draft