Have they always done it this way?
If yes, then it leads to the obvious question.
In the before time, everyone thought TFB+ didn't have a binky, he would always find the open guy.
So if it was all due to the progressions and the ranking of the players, how did people get that impression?
Were the rankings of those receivers much closer than today?
I've never bought that whole "TB throws to the open man" as meaning that he'll throw to anyone at anytime. I think the Pats have always ranked their play makers and designed their offense accordingly so they could feature the players they felt should be touching the ball more frequently.
I believe that they always feature two or three guys when they had the talent and spread it around more when they didn't.
I looked at the numbers from 2001-2007 and 2009-2013. One things that obvious and that everyone already knows is that the Pats underwent a sea change philosophically in 2007. The offense became far more efficient and the passing ratio increased and they played with a much higher tempo which increased the passing game numbers significantly.
However if you just look at target numbers during those years you'll see similar spreads across the board with anomalies here and there.
You'll also see shifting focus from the WR/RB to WR/TE to better mixes year to year which is obviously attributed to the talent at hand leading credence to the idea they've always ranked players and built their game plans accordingly.
In 2001 Brown and Patten were targeted 142 & 94 times respectively. The next four top targets were all RBs, the top target of which was Edwards with 39. I'd say that the game plan passing attacks were focused on two individuals that year.
2002 showed Brown 141, Patten 115 & Branch 68 as the top three targets. The next in line was Faulk with 53 targets. The passing attack was slightly more diversified but not by much.
2003 showed Branch with 104 targets and four others grouped together (Faulk 67, Graham 63 , Brown 60 & Givens 54). This spread shows that Branch was by far Brady's top target, after him the staff used the guys more equally than during most seasons. Of course, David Patten barely played this year due to injury and this offense wasn't nearly the offense this team had in later years. I think these numbers were the result of an injury to the number two guy.
2004 showed a top heavy spread again as Givens 105 emerged, Patten 91 came back & Branch 51 was injured much of the year. Still Graham with 46 targets and multiple running backs with about 30 targets each rounded off the pass attack. Again it was top heavy.
2005 was dominated by Branch 125 and Givens 96 with the next highest target being Faulk with 37. This was a very top heavy year.
2006 showed more of the same with Caldwell at 102 and Watson at 91. Brown made a comeback of sorts with 75 targets. That Watson & Brown show up at all shows the talent limit this team faced during that season in their pass game. Still, the target ratios were top heavy with the next highest after Brown being Faulk at 56.
2007 showed a higher number of targets overall but similar ratios. Moss 160, Welk 145, were far above the next two in Stallworth 75 & Faulk 61.
2009 featured Welk at 162 & Moss at 137 with the next two Edelman 54 & Faulk 53. Watson was next with 41. Top heavy again.
2010 Welk's 123 was far above the next four who were closely grouped in Branch 74, Ahern 64 & Gronk 59. Tate was next with 46. Welk was far and away the number one guy but after that this year was similar to 2003 in the lack of a second top target.
2011 showed probably the best overall balance with four guys receiving significant numbers of targets (Welk 173, Gronk 124, Ahern 113 & Branch 90)
2012 showed a similar spread of targets with Welk 174, Lloyd 131, Ahern 83, Gronk 79 & Woody 55. This isn't as balanced as 2011 but injury surely played a part.
2013 was similar with one player well out in front in number of targets in Edelman w/151. After that the next five targets (Amendola 83, Dobson 72, Verreen 69, Thomkins 69 & Gronk 66) are closely grouped although the drop in numbers reflects the drop in offensive efficiency. I think one can conclude that a healthy Gronk would have skewed these numbers to himself and Edelman keeping with the top heavy approach of other years.
Looking at these numbers I don't see any evidence to indicate that the Pats have ever really veered from featuring certain players far more than others except through necessity. The "Brady throws to the open man" thing is mostly a myth IMO. In fact, I suspect that if one were to compare these target numbers with the efficiency of the targets, one might find that they should have thrown more often to the top ranked guy, at least theoretically. There are too many factors involved to come to an actual conclusion of that nature.
