Broken Branch

"Former Patriots WR Deion Branch spoke about his most recent performance, which included four dropped passes in the Seahawks' 20-17 loss to the Chargers on Sunday. Branch's comments are detailed in this Associated Press piece.
"I feel I let everybody down. My teammates. Friends. Family," Branch said. "I never want to have that feeling again."
Branch has played in 13 games for the Seahawks this season, and has totaled 50 catches and four touchdowns."

Listen, I love Deion Branch. I named a mix CD after him at one point because of his contributions. But can we please start to acknowledge that he isn't Jerry Rice? For one quick second? He's got 50 catches. For comparison, Reche Caldwell has 57. Granted, it would be nice to have Branch and Caldwell in the same WR corps (in my mind, Caldwell is definitely as good as David Givens. Both were elevated by Thomas Brady). But in the end, another team valued Deion Branch as a carry-the-team #1 WR....and he's not.

It looked ugly early as Brady struggled with timing and learning about each particular talent. It takes time to figure out that Doug Gabriel can't handle Patriot Life and Caldwell is a good listener and has worked his way to learn what Brady wants. But don't you think Belichick knew that his team could compete well enough for the first 8 weeks during this stretch? This team is about to win 12 games. 12-4! We were juicy for excitement in 1996 when the Bledsoe/Parcells Pats stole the 11th win at Giants Stadium in the last week of the season. How things change....now the Pats run up a ho-hum 12-win division title and the Bruins and Celts would set off warning alarms by even suiting up for a Game 7 playoff tilt at the TD...try selling that to someone in 1983.