New England Patriots: 5 game changers vs San Francisco 49ers

New England Patriots X-Factors: N’Keal Harry must prove he’s no bust.

New England Patriots 2019 first-round pick N’Keal Harry is starting to run out of excuses.

After accumulating no catches against the Denver Broncos in the team’s 18-12 loss in Week 6, Harry will be out to prove the critics wrong once again.

The big, tall receiver was an X-factor on offense coming into the season and is another bad game away from proving a lot of critics wrong, especially former Patriots tight end Christian Fauria who was critical of the 6-foot-4 receiver this week on WEEI’s “Ordway, Merloni & Fauria.”

"“N’Keal Harry may be the worst route-runner in the history of the world,” Fauria said, via WEEI.  “He is terrible.  Even when he’s open, he’s covered.  Not only does he have terrible feet, and he worked on it, he’s not any better at it.  He’s always late off the ball.  His feet are always jacked up.  It’s like he cruises into the route because he’s not exactly sure where he’s going to go.  And then if you’ve heard of anything that I like to call ‘coverage awareness,’ he has no clue on how to find the voids in coverages.  He runs into coverage.”"

Ouch!

With eight catches for 72 yards in Week 2 against the Seattle Seahawks, N’Keal Harry has certainly shown flashes that he can be much better than Fauria’s assessment.  Perhaps that is the bulletin board material he will need to really get out and prove he can be a factor on offense.

Any production out of him on Sunday may involve getting him the ball early.  The more he is involved, the more he seems to make some plays in the game.  We all know Cam Newton’s confidence in him.  It’s time Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels starts showing some confidence in him as well.