Buying a championship? No thanks...

Don't do it.  Please don't.

In wake of what is being perceived as an inconsistent start to the season by the New England Patriots' offense - the passing game in particular - many are clamoring openly in regard to bringing a veteran receiver under the guise of mentor...and if he happens to catch a few passes along the way, well, that's ok, too.

But, it isn't ok.

The psychological impact for three rookie receivers and their quarterback are potentially so far-reaching that to sign a veteran for anything other than a long-term injury replacement would be akin to confidence killing and acknowledgment a weakness in the teams' collective armor - and coach Bill Belichick is not in that business.

Nor is he in the business of collecting over the hill relics, because while bringing in a grizzled veteran is certainly quick and painless, it sets the offensive philosophy back to it's genesis and slows down the development of the young receivers.

What he is in the business of is fielding a football team that evolves into a championship caliber unit and is playing it's best ball at Thanksgiving and beyond.  To reverse direction now would not only halt the progress already made with the young receivers, but also tell them that it doesn't matter how well they progress, the organization will always have someone waiting in the wings to replace them at the first sign of any lapse.

It would also send a message to quarterback Tom Brady that they don't trust him to be able to help develop these young greyhounds, which is prima facie absurd.

Fair or not, Brady has a stigma attached to him that he's impatient with young receivers and that he can't be part of a program that drafts and develops them, rather, he is of the mindset that bringing in receivers that have been drafted and developed elsewhere and come in ready-made is the recipe for success...

...but that is called Buying a Championship, and it doesn't work - at least not in New England.

No?  Wes Welker, Randy Moss, Chad Ochocinco - three big names, zero trophies.  When Brady took over the offense as a second-year neophyte, he had a veteran-laden receiving corps at his disposal - and as those players departed, the team replaced them with veteran free agents or traded for them, never really showing an interest in building through the draft, always in the win-now mode.

But when Belichick drafted wide receivers Aaron Dobson and Josh Boyce in this past spring's annual selection extravaganza, he had already moved on from Wes Welker and Brandon Lloyd and had signed Danny Amendola, Donald Jones, LaVelle Hawkins and Mike Jenkins, indicating that he had every intention of filling the depth chart with a nice crop of raw rookies to develop and the veterans to mentor them...

...and there was time for the rookies to develop, what with New England's tight end-centric offense in which the receiving corps was more of plus-one supporting cast - the rookies could be brought along slowly, situationally rotating into the two tight end sets as third, fourth or even fifth options in the pattern.

But then came the Summer of Pain, when it was revealed that Rob Gronkowski had developed an infection in this surgically repaired forearm and was suffering from a bulging disc in his lumbar spine for which surgery was indicated, and their other pro bowl quality tight end Aaron Hernandez was an alleged murderer and multiple felon.

Folks from Hartford to Bangor began to get nervous and so many fans were jumping from the bandwagon that it resembled a scene in the film World War Z - but then, something strange started to happen.  Undrafted rookie Zach Sudfeld emerged as a legitimate "move" tight end option, Hernandez' old haunt, and word surfaced that Gronkowski could conceivably be back on the field by October...

...then undrafted rookie wide receiver Kenbrell Thompkins forged a path to the starting lineup in camp and solidified his hold on the position through four preseason games - and with Dobson and Boyce showing flashes of their upside in the same time frame, all three quickly passed the veterans on the depth chart, and all of the veteran pass catchers were purged from the roster.

All, that is, except Amendola who was seen as a bigger, faster and more athletic upgrade from the aging Welker - and with Julian Edelman backing him up and 3rd down vertical threat Shane Vereen bringing h-back versatility to the lineup, it seemed that it was just a matter of time that the Patriots would be able to field a starting spread that would enable Belichick and Brady to develop the youngsters at a median pace...

...but then the injury bug hit, causing wide-spread panic among the masses and harsh criticsim of Belichick for wasting what's left of Brady's Hall of Fame career by forcing a bunch of rookies on him.

Amendola tore something in his groin, Sudfeld pulled a hammy and Vereen broke his wrist on the very first play from scrimmage of the season, suddenly leaving the rookies and oft-injured slot receiver Julian Edelman to shoulder the load in the passing game, with no protection or production from the tight end position.

One game, a handful of dropped passes and wrong routes later and suddenly the entire football world is spreading rumor of the Patriots' demise - because the kids who shined in college and in preseason action against vanilla defenses weren't ready to take over in games that counted...

...but they will be, and that's the point.  Belichick has always used the month of September as an extension of training camp, plugging in his young players as situations dictated, evaluating their worth to the overall team concept and adjusting the roster here and tweaking it there, but never making the wholesale changes that the fans and many in the national media feel are necessary now.

Still, many are calling for a return of Deion Branch, of bringing back a Randy Moss - some even getting so desperate that the thought of Terrell Owens running pass patterns and running underneath Brady's long bombs making them salivate - but it isn't going to happen.  If it were, they would be here already.

No, the Patriots are going to stick this one out, as well they should.  The rookies are playing like - well - rookies, and their issues are inherently correctable - but only with maximum practice reps and real-time snaps in games.

And many forget that these injuries hit the Patriots on a week where they had such a quick turnaround - going from a Sunday game to playing four days later on Thursday night - that the best the team could do in that compressed time frame was to shove the playbook at the rookies and tell them to do their jobs...

...and it wasn't as pretty as most have come to expect from a lethal Patriots' offense, but even as Brady was becoming frustrated at the rookie mistakes being made in the team's 13-10 win over the Jets that brought them to 2-0 on the young season, he and Belichick got something even better than the victory: a full game's worth of film and real-time snaps to use as a learning tool for the rooks.

In the next game against Tampa Bay, the rookies will eliminate some of the mistakes - and the imminent return of Gronkowski will take much of the pressure off of them just by his presence on the field, then the team will go to Atlanta and become better - and before you know it, Thanksgiving will be here and the rookies won't be rookies any longer and will be fulfilling their promise.

That won't happen if the team signs a veteran or two to "mentor" or to take the pressure off of them.

The Patriots crop of receivers are better and have more upside than anything else out there on the open market and, unlike years past, the organization is finally doing the right thing and drafting and developing,  which is the same process that helped them win three Lombardi Trophies in four years, after all...

...and with the return of Gronkowski and Sudfeld, the continued development of Edelman into a number one receiver and the knowledge that Amendola and Vereen will be back by mid-season - coupled with the team being able to ride a ferocious defense and a good running game to victory, the table is set for a powerful and dangerous passing attack to emerge, given time and patience.

This is not to say that the team will not bring back someone like rookie Quentin Sims to fill the roster spot potentially voided by the loss of special teams' ace Matthew Slater, but in terms of bringing in an immediate impact receiver, the old axiom that too many cooks will spoil the broth holds true as signing another receiver will spoil Belichick's post-thanksgiving spread.