Josh McDaniels welcomes new toy in Antonio Brown

FOXBORO – Oh to be Josh McDaniels this week, next week and potentially every week the rest of this NFL season.

 No offensive coordinator in football will have as much fun as McDaniels over the next few days and months. He’s the kid in the basement stocking his Madden team with All-Pros. His buddy grabs Julio Jones or Tyreek Hill? No problem. McDaniels snaps up DeAndre Hopkins, Davante Adams and Travis Kelce and piles up touchdowns.

 His choice to get [...]

FOXBORO – Oh to be Josh McDaniels this week, next week and potentially every week the rest of this NFL season.

 No offensive coordinator in football will have as much fun as McDaniels over the next few days and months. He’s the kid in the basement stocking his Madden team with All-Pros. His buddy grabs Julio Jones or Tyreek Hill? No problem. McDaniels snaps up DeAndre Hopkins, Davante Adams and Travis Kelce and piles up touchdowns.

 His choice to get the ball to all these pass-catching weapons? Tom Brady, of course.

 While that’s the video game world of make believe, McDaniels is the most envied coordinator in real world football too. Throughout training camp McDaniels enjoyed designing options for talents like Julian Edelman, Josh Gordon, Phillip Dorsett, James White and Rex Burkhead. The ageless Brady triggers the attack.

 That group just rolled the Pittsburgh Steelers, 33-3, in the season opener.

 The Patriots offensive coordinator exchanged smiles and high fives with his troops along the sidelines Sunday night but this week things will truly get fun. When he dims the lights in his Gillette Stadium office and starts flipping through his play options, McDaniels will create a role for the most dynamic receiver he’s worked with since Randy Moss was running routes from 2007-09.

 Antonio Brown is that talented, that brilliant and, potentially, that special.

 “He can do everything. Literally everything,” Patriot safety Duron Harmon said Sunday night. “He’s fast, he’s quick. He can run every route. He produces when he’s double-teamed. Any route on the field he can run and he does it at an elite level.”

 That about sums it up, don’t you think?

 We’ll get to just why the Patriots were fortunate enough to be able to add Brown to their roster in a bit but this is the week to dream about what the Patriot attack could look like the rest of this season. McDaniels may have lost Hall of Famer Rob Gronkowski to retirement but he now welcomes Brown, who at 31 years old remains the most productive pass-catcher in the game. He caught 100 or more passes for at least 1,200 yards for the Steelers in each of the last six years despite being the number one focus of every opposing defense.

 He probably can’t match those numbers in New England but that’s only because the Patriots’ cupboard is so full. McDaniels can line up with Brown, Edelman and Gordon on most passing plays. If he chooses to go four wide, Dorsett (who caught two TD’s vs. the Steelers) can get the call.

 McDaniels loves receiver reverse plays to get the ball in Edelman’s hands. Now he can do the same for Brown. Both are also dynamic punt returners.

 Edelman and Brown demand double-teams in many situations. That really can’t happen with both on the field at the same time and if a defense does overload towards them, Brady can look Gordon's way. Or find James White or Burkhead out of the backfield.

 The options are limitless.

 Brady smashed records with 50 TD’s and over 4,800 passing yards in the almost-perfect 2007 season. Moss (23 TD’s), Wes Welker, Donte Stallworth, Jabar Gaffney and Kevin Faulk constituted his fleet of targets.

 Even without a top-flight tight end isn’t this collection of speed, hands and escapability more dynamic?

 While the exciting possibilities must be oozing out of McDaniel’s IPad, this week is about getting Brown’s head in the playbook. He may not even be active for Sunday’s game in Miami but, then again, the Dolphins are so putrid there isn’t a better soft game for the Pats to introduce Brown into the offense.

 “Antonio’s been an effective player his whole career. We’ve had to defend him numerous times in my time in New England,” McDaniels said on a conference call Tuesday. “For us, it’s how quickly we can get him acclimated to our process and our system and the things we do here and just build trust on the practice field and see how it goes and kind of let that determine how we build it from there.”

 That’s Patriot Speak for giving a big-timer some space and time to acclimate himself to the team. Good luck with that one.

 Brown doesn’t deserve any of that after the way he shot himself out of Oakland. He is the player Patriot fans are discussing, the press is writing about and media tongues are arguing over. He craves the spotlight and it’s only getting brighter with a jump to the Super Bowl champions.

 Much of the noise surrounding Brown comes from his destructive exit in Pittsburgh last December and in Oakland last week. If it seems like he knew a soft landing spot was awaiting him in New England, you're catching on. 

The Patriots clearly felt Brown's talent was too great not to give him a chance in Foxboro. His contract is Belichick-friendly so expect a very different cat with this change of address.

 “I wasn’t in either one of those places so I can’t really comment on what did or didn’t happen there,” Belichick said Tuesday.

 Reminded about Brown’s tumultuous, selfish exit from Oakland, the coach snapped “that’s the same thing you (media members) said about Randy Moss when we brought him in.”

 Can Antonio Brown fit in as smoothly, as incident-free as Randy Moss did in Foxboro 12 years ago?

 If so Belichick and the Patriots will once again be playing in more Super Bowls. They'll also keep laughing at the rest of the NFL.