The bad news: David Thomas is out. The good news: Marcellus Rivers is back!
Sadly, we won’t see David Thomas operate in the three tightend Power-I formation the way we did last year. New England Patriots placed Thomas on the Injured Reserve list today, meaning he won’t play again this year. That stinks, because Thomas is a promising combination of good receiving and decent blocking (Better blocker than Benjamin Watson! Better receiver than Kyle Brady!).
But the Patriots have secured a replacement who in my estimation will be solid: Marcellus Rivers. You may remember Rivers from training camp and pre-season games when he held the fort during Thomas’s and Brady’s absences. Rivers is a pretty powerful blocker and his hands aren’t entirely made of concrete. I’m a bit surprised he’s still on the market, quite frankly, but I guess the NFL is totally stacked with tightends who can block.
I don’t know how much they’ll use Rivers, probably not too much considering that Watson is such a good receiver and Brady is such a good blocker, but I hope they’ll use him in the above-mentioned Power-I formation. Since the Patriots shamelessly use wide receiver Randy Moss as a split end in those formations, instead of a third tightend as they did last year, opposing defenses will still have to mind the pass, even if Rivers rather than Watson is in with Brady.
November 6 update: That didn’t last long. Rivers was cut today, probably to make room for one of the players coming off the PUP. I guess wide receiver is the primary candidate for Rivers’s spot.
