Pats receivers show improvement

FOXBOROUGH – While they didn’t do anything to make you forget about Randy Moss or Deion Branch, the Patriots receivers had a much better time of it in Sunday’s 23-3 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.Kenbrell Thompkins, in particular, could go home Sunday night feeling a little better about things. After joining the rest of the rookie receiving corps in being totally abysmal last week against the New York Jets, Thompkins caught both Tom Brady touchdown passes, and both he and Aaron Dobson played more in accordance with expectations.Dobson caught seven of the 10 passes thrown his way, for 52 yards, and looked pretty comfortable coming across the middle on a couple of occasions. Thompkins caught only three balls out of seven, but was effective in the red zone.Thompkins found himself matched up with Tampa Bay cornerback Darrelle Revis, who was used more in zone coverage than perhaps those who saw him play for the Jets would remember.”We all know Revis is an elite cornerback,” said Thompkins, “and it was good for me to just get a feel for him. To go out there and play a full game against him was good.”Like most Patriots rookies, Thompkins’ media time was well-managed by the team’s public relations staff. But he did manage to say, “overall, I thought it was a good day for the team. We’re going to put this one behind us and get ready for the (Atlanta) Falcons.”Outside of a touchdown reception against the Jets, Dobson had several crucial drops in the New York game. Sunday, he felt he established some rhythm.”I felt like the offense overall had a pretty good day,” he said. “I’m just trying to improve … I had a good game, and I’m just trying to go out there and produce.”And while Brady took a lot of heat around the league for his overly-demonstrative gesturing during last Thursday’s game, Dobson said it didn’t fall on deaf ears.”You just have to learn from it,” he said. “It’s going to happen … mistakes are going to happen, but you have to learn from it … learn from the mistakes this week, and then go back out and do it right.””You go through spring camps and you have the practices, and because there’s no real competition and there’s no scoreboard, in some sense you get a false sense of security that things are going the right way.”And then you have preseason games and practices and things are going the right way, but it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Now it matters.”