Top 5 worst receivers Tom Brady played with during his NFL career
Tom Brady dominated the sport of football for more than 2 decades.
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(Image via USA Today)
The New England Patriots legend Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback to ever throw the spiral. The 45-year-old dominated the sport for the last 23 years with two different teams before he announced his retirement following the 2022 season. During his career, Brady won seven Championship rings, 5 Super Bowl MVPs, and 3 league MVPs, and received the Pro Bowl nod a league-high 15 times.
Throughout his career, Tom Brady had some great guidance and offensive weapons around that made him a better signal-caller. Apart from the Patriots’ head coach Bill Belichick, Brady also had the help of some of the best offensive players, like Rob Gronkowski, Randy Moss, and Julian Edelman along the way.
Tom Brady and Bill Belichick were able to create arguably the greatest sports dynasty of the 21st century so far with some great help. But Brady also had to carry a lot of not-so-great players to Super Bowl glory.
Now, the whole Patriots dynasty was created with the help of the “under-the-radar” type of offensive players. Tom Brady, Julian Edelman, Wes Welker, Danny Amendola, and James White are all part of the Dynasty and all of them were drafted in or after the fourth round.
In fact, Welker and Amendola entered the league as undrafted free agents. Despite being late-round draft picks or undrafted free agents, they all played a huge part in shaping Brady’s career. But some players who had the potential and were touted highly went on to have disappointing careers despite catching passes from the GOAT.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the five worst wide receivers Tom Brady ever had in his NFL career. Brady played with a lot of bad receivers that didn’t make it big in the league, but in this article, we’ll just focus on the players who had the potential and the hype but massively failed to click with Brady.
Related: Top 5 best receivers Tom Brady played with during his NFL career
5. Scott Miller (Buccaneers)
Granted, Scott Miller neither generated a lot of hype nor was he a highly touted prospect. Although during his first season with Tom Brady in Tampa Bay, he showed a lot of potential catching 33 passes for 501 yards and 3 touchdowns while playing behind an army of offensive weapons like Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Rob Gronkowski, Antonio Brown, and Leonard Fournette.
Oh! And who could forget that unbelievable 39-yard touchdown against the Green Bay Packers during the final seconds of the first half of the NFC Championship game? Thanks to Brady, Miller has a Super Bowl ring on his resume. But after his promising first season with Brady, Miller didn’t do a lot in the other 2 years he played with the Buccaneers legend.
In the next 2 seasons, he started just 1 game and caught 28 passes for 223 yards and 0 touchdowns. He missed some games due to injury, but even when he was on the field, Miller didn’t really do a lot. Fortunately, the 25-year-old receiver was able to get a second contract in the league with the Atlanta Falcons and only time will tell how he will fare in there.
4. Chad Johnson (Patriots)
Chad Johnson, also known as Chad Ochocinco, was at one point the best wide receiver in the NFL. However, that was the case when he was playing for the Cincinnati Bengals.
Drafted by the Cincinnati-based football team in the 2nd round of the 2001 NFL Draft, Johnson had a great career with the Bengals as he registered 10,783 receiving yards and 66 touchdowns during his 10-year stint.
But when Johnson joined the Patriots camp in 2011 with high hopes of winning a ring with Tom Brady, unfortunately, his age caught up to him. He was initially given a 3-year contract by the Patriots, but he only played one season with them.
He finished his only season with 276 receiving yards and one touchdown catch. Johnson even played in the Super Bowl loss against the New York Giants, but he only caught one pass for 21 yards. After that season, Johnson was released by the New England-based franchise and he never played a snap in another NFL game.
3. Aaron Dobson (Patriots)
The Patriots don’t know how to draft a good wide receiver in the early rounds and Aaron Dobson is one perfect example of it. Dobson was drafted by the Patriots in the second round of the 2013 NFL Draft (17 picks before the 5-time Pro Bowl WR Keenan Allen).
Dobson showed great potential in his rookie season catching 37 passes for 519 yards and 4 touchdowns, but no one would’ve expected that would be the best season of his career. The 6’3″ wide receiver only survived 3 seasons with the Patriots registering 698 receiving yards and 4 touchdowns. After he was cut by the Pats, Dobson had two short stints with the Detroit Lions and the Arizona Cardinals, but never played a snap for both of those teams.
2. Phillip Dorsett (Patriots)
Phillip Dorsett was a highly touted wide receiver prospect coming out of Miami in 2015. He was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts in the first round of the 2015 NFL Draft, but he never showed the quality of a first-round pick in the NFL.
After 2 seasons with the Colts, he was traded to the Patriots in a package for QB Jacoby Brissett. The Colts gave up on the first-round draft pack after just 2 seasons. Nevertheless, Dorsett spent 3 seasons in New England and registered only 881 receiving yards and 8 touchdowns. However, thanks to Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, Dorsett got a Super Bowl ring during his time with the Patriots.
1. N’Keal Harry (Patriots)
As previously mentioned, the Patriots really have no clue when it comes to drafting a wide receiver in the early rounds. N’Keal Harry was drafted by the Patriots in the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft.
He was supposed to be the number 1 wide receiver that Tom Brady allegedly kept asking Bill Belichick for during his final years in New England. Instead, he ended up being a massive bust.
Harry just spent one season with Tom Brady catching 12 passes for 105 yards and 2 touchdowns. Maybe Harry was the final straw that led Brady to leave the Patriots because that’s not the production you expect from a first-round draft pick.
After a 3-year disappointing stint with the Patriots, Harry was traded to the Chicago Bears in exchange for a 2024 seventh-round selection. Harry has registered 714 receiving yards and 5 touchdowns in 4 years so far and shows no sign of improving.
Just due to the sheer amount of disappointment, N’Keal Harry comes at no.1 in the list of the Top 5 worst wide receivers the 3-time All-Pro QB Tom Brady has ever played with in his NFL career.
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Aravind Raj
(2075 Articles Published)