New England Patriots: Dalton Keene needs to become a factor

With Dalton Keene grabbing his first catch in Week 7, the New England Patriots need him to make a difference throughout the rest of the regular season.

This season one area of the game where the New England Patriots have struggled the most is something that they used to be so good at. New England’s passing game has been abysmal in 2020 and if they want it to improve players like Dalton Keene will need to step up.

Part of the reason that New England has been struggling to gain yards in the air is due to their lack of weapons. Teams are focusing in on Julian Edelman and Damiere Byrd and taking away some of the Patriots biggest passing weapons. This makes life hard for Cam Newton.

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When the Patriots were successful on offense it was because they had multiple targets. Rob Gronkowski, James White, and Edelman were pillars of the offense.

The tight end position is important for New England. When the Patriots have a quality pass-catching tight end they tend to play well.

That’s what they have been missing ever since Gronkowski left the team. In this past draft, we saw New England try and fill this hole by drafting Devin Asiasi and Keene.

It was expected that Asiasi would do most of the pass catching while Keene would be more of a blocking tight end. That hasn’t been the case as Keene has outperformed Asiasi.

Keene can be used in various ways. You can put him out wide or just have him line up next to the offensive line. When next to the line, he can start the play off blocking or chip a rusher at the line and then go out for a pass. This can help give Newton more time to throw the ball and likely help Keene get open.

If Keene is able to become a major part of the passing game, we could see the Patriots offense start to improve. Defense’s would have to pay more attention to him and this could help players such as Byrd or N’Keal Harry get open.

Then in turn this could help Damien Harris get going on the ground. Defense’s will have to gameplan to stop the pass meaning that they will be unable to stack the box like they have been able to in previous weeks.

So if the Patriots want to get their passing game as well as the offense as a whole going, they will need Keene to step up and make an impact as a rookie. Then fans might finally be able to have a positive outlook on the team’s future without Tom Brady.