New England Patriots: Can N’Keal Harry and Jakobi Meyers emerge down the stretch?

N’Keal Harry and Jakobi Meyers each made significant impacts for the New England Patriots in Week 12, can they emerge as reliable targets for Tom Brady?

There has been little excitement about the New England Patriots offense for the past few weeks, and on the surface, their 13-9 win over the Dallas Cowboys in Week 12 provided little reason for intrigue about a struggling passing game.

While Tom Brady completed under 50 percent of his passes and had only 190 yards and a touchdown, hope that he may have some new targets to rely on came in the performances of rookies wide receivers N’Keal Harry and Jakobi Meyers.

Harry, the Patriots’ first-round pick, did not have a catch until the Week 11 defeat of the Philadelphia Eagles but displayed his excellent body control to haul in Brady’s sole touchdown pass versus Dallas.

Undrafted free agent Meyers was a preseason darling for New England and provided a demonstration of why he received such hype during the exhibition season. NC State product Meyers had four catches for 74 yards.

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It was after the catch that Meyers did most of his damage, his display highlighted by a 32-yard connection on which he bulldozed one defender and made another miss as he worked his way up the sideline.

The efforts of Harry and Meyers in a sloppy game played in torrential rain may not live long in the memory of those outside the Patriots organization. However, Brady and Bill Belichick will have paid closer attention and, after Harry and Meyers each came through in a one-score game, New England’s future Hall of Famer is more likely to trust them when the Patriots are playing January football.

Julian Edelman will continue to be Brady’s number one target but, following their contributions against the Cowboys, it should be no surprise if Harry and Meyers’ names are called much more often down the stretch and in the postseason,