The New England Patriots have a great quarterback in Tom Brady, a great tight end in Rob Gronkowski and a very good wide receiver in Julian Edelman but besides those three the offense is a bit of a question mark entering the 2015 NFL season. Brandon LaFell will start the year on the PUP list, Shane Vereen is a New York Giant and LeGarrette Blount is suspended for the first game so the Patriots will need someone to step up. Doug Kyed of NESN believes that Scott Chandler will play a big role in the Patriots' offense at least early in the season.
The Patriots are big believers in the two tight-end sets after having so much success with it when Gronk and Aaron Hernandez were on the team together. Since Hernandez has been gone the Patriots have tried to replace him with several different guys but it has yet to work out. Last season Tim Wright was the guy they brought in but he had little impact on the offense.
Chandler isn't of the same mold as Hernandez who was a fast tight-end; he instead is more of the Gronkowski mold. Chandler is a big lumbering tight-end at 6 foot-7 and the Patriots believe he will cause matchup nightmares for opposing teams with that size. New England is expecting opposing defenses to key on Gronkowski and Edelman so they hope Chandler has a lot of one-on-one matchups and they believe he will win them.
Chandler's big role might only last until LaFell returns in week seven but until then he may just be a beneficiary of Brady's willingness to spread the ball around. Along with Chandler potentially having a huge role Danny Amendola also will technically be in the mix to get those targets but the Patriots really love their tight-ends.
The 30 year old tight end spent the past four and a half seasons with the Buffalo Bills where he was productive but never did anything flashy or great. In his four plus seasons as a Bill, Chandler caught 182 passes for more than 2,000 yards and 17 touchdowns. The Patriots should be able to use Chandler's size down in the red-zone and even between the twenties especially if he is covered one-on-one.
