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The Patriots will soon need to make their decision on free-agent receiver Jakobi Meyers: pay him or let him walk.
Meyers, who figures to be one of the top receivers on the market next month, has gotten better each year he's been in the league, developing into New England's -- and Mac Jones' -- most reliable target. In addition to posting his second consecutive 8-yard season, the formerly undrafted pass-catcher also notched a career-high six receiving touchdowns.
Detractors will note that Meyers doesn't have the explosiveness or size needed to be a true No. 1 receiver in the NFL and that overpaying to keep him simply based off of production might not be the best allocation of resources.
Then again, he possesses one key trait that makes him fundamentally important to the Patriots and any other offense: the guy flat-out gets open.
Arjun Menon of Pro Football Focus shared a graphic highlighting how well receivers go open against true one-on-one coverage last year, and Meyers stood out as a one of the best in the business at beating man defense. The Patriots receiver got open against man 60 times out of 132 coverage snaps, which was good for a 45.45 percent clip that ranked 19th -- just behind Atlanta's Olamide Zaccheaus -- among free agents.
When you think about how unimaginative the Patriots' offense was last season and the sheer volume of targets Meyers got here, that's a pretty outstanding stat.
For perspective, Allen Lazard and JuJu Smith-Schuster, who are also viewed as potential top free-agent receivers, only got open against one-on-one coverage about 37 and 33 percent of the time, respectively.
As you can see, Nelson Agholor also found his way onto this list with the 30th-best clip among free-agent receivers by getting open against man defense at a rate of about 42.6 percent. Getting open wasn't the problem for Agholor. Though; catching (and holding onto) the football was.
If the Patriots want to find reasons to not to re-sign Meyers, they certainly can. But his ability to get open and consistently produce won't be among them. Should New England let him get paid elsewhere, it had better have a really good succession plan.