Analysis: Trying to figure out how WR Corey Coleman fits in the Patriots' passing game

The two things I immediately thought of when I saw the Patriots added Corey Coleman to the roster on Tuesday.

1. I am becoming more and more fascinated with the fact New England continues to sign guys who were part of last year’s Browns team that went 0-16. Coleman is the fourth, joining Kenny Britt, Jason McCourty, and Danny Shelton. This is clearly a slow play on the part of Bill Belichick to try and see how many games he would win if he took over one of the only winless teams in NFL history.

2. With the departure of Jordan Matthews, I wonder if Coleman will become this year’s version of “the former ex-Bill who ends up beating his old team.” Granted, he was only with Buffalo for a few weeks this summer, but certainly seemed to make an impression with the folks in upstate New York.

But that’s not why you subscribe to BostonSportsJournal.com now, is it? When news broke the Patriots added three offensive skill position players on Tuesday — Coleman, Bennie Fowler and Kenjon Barner — the easy choice for a breakdown was to pick Coleman, a fascinating prospect who terrified opposing defensive coordinators as a collegian at Baylor, but has just never seemed to put it together as a pro. He’s broken the same hand twice, had an issue with drops, and is now on his third pro team in two-plus years. After such a great college career, something went wrong for him somewhere. So we took a look at his film the last two-plus years to try and figure some things out.


The 5-foot-11, 185-pounder was s first-round pick of the Browns in 2016. At Baylor, he was one of the best receivers in the country. He won the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top receiver in 2015 and was a unanimous All-American and first-team all-Big 12. He led the country with 20 touchdown receptions and had 74 catches for 1,363 receiving yards on the season. He ran a 4.37 40 at his Pro Day, and when you look at him as a collegian in that wide-open Baylor offense, it’s easy to see why he went 15th overall in the draft — he was dominant. He was making tough catches in traffic. He was running past defenders. He was making guys miss. The complete package.











Taken in the first round by the Browns in 2016, as a rookie, he was good: 10 games, 33 catches, 413 yards, three touchdowns. That’s not “15th-overall pick” good, necessarily, but when you’re playing for Cleveland, that’s OK. If you take his per game averages into account, you can argue he would have approached 50 catches as a rookie if he hadn’t suffered a broken hand, which left him sidelined for six games that year. Fifty catches as a rookie? That would get you a statue in New England. There were some really impressive moments for the youngster, who was used almost exclusively as a boundary receiver in the Browns’ offense.









So what happened on the way to the Hall of Fame? The move from a veteran like Josh McCown to a youngster in DeShone Kizer was big for Coleman, in my experience. That sort of stability with McCown allowed him to grow into the position a bit. (And if everything comes together as the Patriots might hope this year, that’s a big plus for him going forward.) There was the struggles with another broken hand, as well as the frustration built up from being part of a team that was bound for 0-16. (Watching film on Shelton and McCourty last year with Cleveland, it was evident there were plenty of guys who had checked out by December.) Coleman had 23 catches on 58 targets for 305 yards and a pair of touchdowns, but just three catches on a whopping 16 targets over the last three games.

While he’s a guy who has struggled with drops over his career — more on that in a second — to be fair, his catch percentage wasn’t all his fault. Look at this ball from Kizer. There was a lot of this late in the season.



But this one, well … this one is going to haunt Coleman for a long time. In the regular-season finale, the Browns are driving in the fourth quarter, and are angling for a game-winner that could give them their first and only victory of the season. It’s fourth down, and Coleman starts in the backfield. Kizer finds him along the sideline, floats it in his direction … and Coleman drops the ball.



Look at the reaction from Josh Gordon and David Njoku. I’ve never seen two guys put their hands to their head in dismay like that. If you slow it down, you can see their hearts shatter in real time, like when Lisa broke up with Ralph Wiggum. (But then again, that’s the 2017 Browns for you.)

For the record, drops have always been a bit of an Achilles’ heel for him, both in college (10 drops) and in the pros. Football Outsiders has him for eight total drops in 19 games as a professional. One more note — he doesn’t have any experience as a punt returner, but did return some kicks in college.

So what’s a reasonable level of expectation for Coleman this year? Obviously, any time you bring in a receiver at this point on the calendar, expectations need to be managed. Just ask Phillip Dorsett, who was acquired at this point last year but is just now starting to feel comfortable in the New England system. Dorsett spent the last year with his eyes and ears open, acting as a sponge and just trying to take everything in and learn as much as possible.

But in truth, Dorsett probably provides a pretty good template for Coleman — a college star who stumbled a bit out of the gate as a pro, he appears to have found a home with Brady because he's learned, in his words, to think like the quarterback. To that end, the best possible scenario for the former Brown and Bill would for him to be to this offense what Dorsett was last year — an occasional home-run option with the potential for growth over the course of the season. If he can follow that blueprint, Coleman has a chance to provide some much-needed depth this year and (possibly) become another contributor at wide receiver heading into 2019.