Rob Gronkowski Is From Another Planet And Other Leftover Patriots Thoughts
BOSTON (CBS) -- It's just not supposed to happen like this in the NFL.
It's a league comprised of the biggest, strongest and fastest men in the world, and though some will always be bigger or stronger or faster than some others, the discrepancy is never supposed to be so vast, so painfully obvious as it was on the football field at Gillette Stadium on Sunday.
Just two minutes into the third quarter, with his Patriots already leading 38-7, Rob Gronkowski stood upright on the right side of the line. He sprinted seven yards up the field before cutting to his left. Tom Brady waited patiently for Gronkowski to gain some separation from the helpless defender tasked with covering Gronkowski one-on-one before delivering a pass to his giant target. Gronkowski came up with the catch, a play that looked destined to gain about 12 yards, move the sticks and keep the drive alive. Instead, it turned into the ultimate Rob Gronkowski highlight.
After making the not-so-easy catch, Gronkowski looked up to find Ryan Mundy charging hard. Now, Ryan Mundy is not a small man. He stands 6-foot-1, 209 pounds, and in his sixth NFL season, the safety was likely the most athletic person on every field, court or track he ever stepped on for most of his life. But on Sunday, he looked like a schoolchild trying to bring down Gronkowski.
The 6-foot-6, 265-pound tight end waited for Mundy to attempt a tackle before using his own right arm as a dangerous weapon. He placed his giant mitt on Mundy's right shoulder and violently shoved Mundy to the ground. If you look closely, you can read Gronkowski's lips: "Get off me, peasant."
Now, such an aggressive act can be tiring, so as Gronkowski broke away from the dazed Mundy, it looked as though Albert Louis-Jean had a fast track on stopping Gronk. After all, the lumbering tight end still had 20 yards to go before getting to the end zone, and the speedy defensive back appeared to be chasing Gronkowski in double speed.
Yet for whatever reason -- perhaps because he just watched his teammate get assaulted -- Louis-Jean took a roundabout route in getting to Gronkowski. He was able to wrap up Gronkowski at the 5-yard line, but, well, that just wasn't enough either. When Rob Gronkowski sniffs the end zone, it would take a Mack Truck to keep him away.
Determined, Gronkowski charged toward the goal line, lifting poor Louis-Jean off his feet. When Gronk came down, he was a yard deep in the end zone, holding in his hands his third touchdown of the afternoon.
It was the exclamation point on what was arguably the 25-year-old's (yes, Gronkowski is still just 25 years old) best day as a professional football player. He matched career highs with nine receptions and three touchdowns, and with 149 receiving yards, he came 11 yards shy of hitting his career high in that department. So what makes this his best game ever? Well, he did all of that in roughly half of a football game, as that 46-yard catch-and-run turned out to be his final play of the afternoon.
The Patriots officially said Gronkowski left due to dehydration, which is possible ... or the team is just trying to throw us all off the scent that Rob Gronkowski is not a human being. It's hard to say what he is or where he's from, but it's obvious that he's not like the rest of us.
Now let's run through a few more leftover thoughts from the Patriots' 51-23 dismantling of the Chicago Bears.
--Tom Brady had himself a nice little afternoon as well. He, too, turned in one of the best performances of his Hall of Fame career, throwing as many incompletions (5) as touchdowns on the day. It was just the fifth time that Brady threw five touchdowns in a game, with the first three coming in the magical 2007 season and the fourth in 2009, almost exactly five years prior to Sunday.
It was not nearly his best game in terms of passer rating, because apparently his 30-for-35/354 yards/5 TDs/0 INT performance Sunday was only good for a 148.4 rating. That wasn't comparable to his 21-for-27/341 yards/4 TDs/0 INT vs. Detroit on Thanksgiving 2010, which for whatever reason earned him a 158.3 rating. It's something about the number of attempts per touchdown pass, or something like that. It's probably an indication that passer rating is kind of a silly thing.
--Everyone keeps touting Tom Brady's numbers "since that Kansas City loss," and to that I say phooey. This is a football season, ladies and germs, and you can't pick and choose your stats from the good times. So with that in mind, and considering the season is halfway over, let's look at Brady's overall numbers through eight games and see what he's on pace for.
Currently: 181-for-281 (64.4 percent), 2,059 yards, 18 TDs, 2 INTs
On pace: 362-for-562 (64.4 percent), 4,118 yards, 36 TDs, 4 INTs
If those numbers hold (they won't, but bear with me, this is all we have), Brady will once again finish the season with one of the most absurd TD-INT ratios of all time. His 9-to-1 ratio in 2010 made him the first-ever unanimous MVP in league history, and while he won't be winning the MVP this year, if he pulls off the same statistical feat this season, well, I'll just say that I'll be glad that I didn't spend the offseason writing that Brady was no longer a top five quarterback.
Cheap shots at bad takes aside, this much is clear: When the offensive line holds up in front of him, Tom Brady is as good as ever. And with Bryan Stork and Dan Connolly returning to the line on Sunday, Brady had his first sack-free game. It's no coincidence that it was also his best.
--In a bit of randomness, Nick Foles obliterated that TD-to-INT record last year when he threw 27 TDs and just 2 INTs. However, his 12 TDs and 9 INTs this year indicate that Nick Foles is perhaps not quite destined for greatness the same way it looked last year.
--Another statistical oddity? Brady won't even be named AFC Offensive Player of the Week. That honor will go to Ben Roethlisberger, who out of nowhere threw for 522 yards and six touchdowns on 40-of-49 passing. That was ... unexpected.
--You know what I'm tired of hearing? I'm tired of hearing about how terrible the AFC East is, and how the Patriots only win the division every year because the Bills, Jets and Dolphins are so bad. Well listen here, dummies. The AFC East is hardly the worst division in football:
AFC East
Overall record: 16-15
Sore spots: New York Jets (1-7)
Overall point differential: +13
AFC South
Overall record: 12-20
Sore spots: Tennessee (2-6), Jacksonville (1-7)
Overall point differential: -83
NFC South
Overall record: 9-20-1 (Yes, an entire division has just nine wins, and four of those wins came via intra-division matchups, which means NFC South teams have won non-division games just five times this season.)
Sore spots: All four teams have losing records
Overall point differential: -149
The VAUNTED NFC West
Overall record: 16-12
Sore spots: St. Louis (2-5)
Overall point differential: -34
One team will win each of those divisions, but only the Patriots' division win will be regarded as meaningless, the benefit of playing in such a bad division. That's just how it goes, I guess, facts be damned.
--Jay Cutler is awesome. Just a national treasure, that fella. I particularly enjoyed the Bears' opening drive, when the game was tied at zero and the Bears hadn't yet gotten completely run out of the building. Despite that fact, Jay Cutler had no interest in trying to make a third-and-19 play work. The quarterback did not recognize the Patriots' defense, which indicated he should have run any play but a screen. He then faced absolutely no pressure from the Patriots' two-man rush, but he didn't like what he saw when the Patriots sniffed out the screen, so he simply spiked the football into the turf.
For someone whose face regularly pops up on "Don't caaaaare!" memes, this play didn't do much to change people's minds.
Cutler was equally magical when asked after the game what happened on his fumble. In the play in question, Dont'a Hightower had Cutler wrapped up by the ankles after initially letting the QB slip through his grasp. Then Zach Moore and Dominique Easley came flying in to join the party, and for whatever reason, instead of tucking the ball to his body and taking the sack, Cutler held the ball out far away from his chest, as if he was going to try some sort of shovel pass or something. He didn't pull that off, instead fumbling. Rob Ninkovich picked it up and ran it in for a touchdown, and the game was over before halftime.
So, Jay, what happened on the fumble?
"Just got hit and the ball came out."
That was it. What an absolute legend this Cutler guy is.
--I saw somebody comment that Julian Edelman had a bad game. This is simply a terrible way to interpret the events of Sunday afternoon.
For one, Edelman may have hurt the passing game with his two drops more than he helped it, but he also made what I contend to be the most important play of the game -- a 42-yard punt return with 1:26 left in the first half. When the Chicago holding penalty was tacked on, it set the Patriots up at the 9-yard line, and it took Brady all of one play to find Brandon LaFell for a touchdown, adding seven huge points before the break and further demoralizing the sad-sack Bears. The Ninkovich fumble return came on the following Bears possession, and that 21-points-in-57-seconds barrage was all made possible by that one punt return. So no, it was hardly a terrible game for Mr. Edelman, as that punt return turned the game from somewhat interesting into a laugher.
(Side note: Nice job covering this punt, Bears. Really, any time you can give 20 yards of free space to one of the better punt returners in the NFL, you should definitely give it a whirl and see what happens.)
Secondly, I noted in my last installment of leftover thoughts that it seems as though Julian Edelman just can't get tackled like a normal person. He's always getting his neck twisted or his back bent in half like some sort of sick football contortionist. Just look!
So in that sense, it's a true blessing that Edelman dropped those passes, because it saved him from getting ripped in half. He'll head into the Denver game with essentially 17 days off from taking huge hits, so he'll probably be feeling pretty good. He's been the team's workhorse this season, so the fact that it worked out so that he got some rest in a blowout provides the team with an added bonus.
--You know what's become a common sight and might get taken for granted around these parts? The camera shots of Tom Brady sprinting up to Rob Gronkowski to celebrate a touchdown. You know, when it's all said and done, Brady will obviously be regarded as one of the best QBs to ever touch a football, and if he can stay healthy for most of the next decade, Gronk will undoubtedly be a Hall of Famer. So soak in these celebrations while you can, people.
--I hate to seem like I'm picking on Louis-Jean, as he's local and is probably a nice kid. So don't get me wrong, I'm not mocking him so much as I'm standing in awe of Gronkowski's power here, as he runs so hard through Louis-Jean that he literally knocks the kid off his feet.
The lesson? As always, kids, stay off the tracks when the No. 87 train is rolling through.
--I apologize for being heavy on Gronkowski today, but this picture is too good to pass up:
Be gone, football. I am too good for you.
--Not to nit-pick too harshly here, but what fun is a world where we don't pick the nits? What, exactly, was Josh McDaniels thinking with all of those running plays on the goal line? Tom Brady was having a nearly perfect day, his only incompletion being a pass that hit Shane Vereen in both hands, and McDaniels' first five play calls inside the 5-yard line went like this:
Inside handoff to Vereen, gain of 1 yard
QB sneak, no gain
Inside handoff to Gray, no gain
Handoff to Gray, loss of 2 yards, negated by a late false start penalty, which forced New England to settle for a field goal
Inside handoff to Vereen, no gain
Finally, the Patriots went to the air on the sixth play on the goal line, and lo and behold, they scored themselves a touchdown -- an easy one to Tim Wright, at that.
I understand the Patriots might have wanted to see if they had anyone on the roster who could replace Stevan Ridley in the tough yards department, but, well, they don't. Ridley's a pretty special runner. And to go to Jonas Gray so many times early on, thereby keeping the football out of Brady's hands, was some suspect decision-making by Mr. McDaniels.
--I tend to not always pay the closest attention to Tom Brady's Wednesday press conferences, because ever since his "lubed up" comment drew negative attention in 2011, he's taken painstaking steps toward saying absolutely nothing. So I missed this one comment from last week, but fortunately Bob Socci brought it up in his weekly appearance on Felger & Mazz.
Socci recalled how he had asked Brady about his touchdown pass to Danny Amendola against the Jets, and specifically about the work that went into Brady being able to escape pressure and deliver a strong, accurate pass while on the run. I thought Brady's answer was pretty fantastic.
"Yeah, that's never really been something that I've been great at is extending plays," the always self-critical Brady said. "I see so many of these players – whether it be Russell Wilson or Aaron Rodgers or Jay Cutler do it, Alex Smith does it – some really mobile quarterbacks that do a great job for their team. Ben Roethlisberger has done it for a lot of years. I'm just trying to understand how I can help our team more. If I can make some more of those plays, I think it'd really help our team. I try to focus on that a little bit. Coach has talked about it. I think there could be more of those still, too. I don't think instinctually it's there for me yet, but I'm going to keep working at it. Because when you see when they happen, they end up being big plays, big momentum plays. Like I said, it hasn't really been a strength of mine. I'm trying to do a better job of it so hopefully it's not as big of a weakness as it's been in the past."
There's Tom Brady, surefire Hall of Famer, looking at his game in Year 15 and saying, "You know what, some guys out there are much better than I am in this one particular skill-set, and I can get better if I improve in that area, so I'm going to do it."
And we've seen the fruits of that labor in back-to-back weeks, first with the gorgeous touchdown play to Amendola and this week with a third-and-18 bullet to Gronkowski.
What makes Hall of Famers so great is their never-ending quest for perfection. And though Brady will never be Russell Wilson when it comes to sprinting away from pressure and throwing on the run, he's still trying to get better at age 37. That's the type of leadership that permeates a locker room and tells the younger players to never be satisfied.
--That pass to Gronkowski was one of two plays when play-by-play announcer Sam Rosen simply blew it. On that play, he said Gronkowski dropped the pass. He did not drop the pass. It was very clear that he did not drop the pass. Later, Martellus Bennett came up with one of the sickest touchdown catches of the year, and Rosen had absolutely no idea. He told broadcast partner John Lynch, "I have to tell you, I saw the flag came out, I gave up on the play, John! [chuckle chuckle chuckle]"
I did not go to Syracuse or anything, but I believe one of the main tenets of doing play-by-play is that you don't ever "give up on a play." Woof.
--You know what else I like? Of course you don't, so I'll tell you: I like Brandon LaFell calling for a flag with 10 minutes left in the game when he thought Shane Vereen was interfered with.
That's just a guy who's not satisfied with a 30-point lead in the fourth quarter and wants to keep scoring. I like it.
--Brandon Browner finally had his true Patriots debut, and it had to have been exactly what Bill Belichick had in mind when he went out and signed him. Yes, he picked up a couple of penalties, but he made life hard for whichever big body lined up against him. And come January, it'll be a lot harder for the officials to throw those chintzy illegal contact flags, so I'd bet the coaching staff will tell Mr. Browner to just keep on keeping on.
--It is a truly rare case where I'd pile on top of someone who suffered an injury, but Lamarr Houston, my goodness, you are the rare case. Consider the facts here: Lamarr Houston, 27 years old, a veteran of five seasons, playing in his 72nd NFL game. He's playing in the final five minutes of a game in which his team is trailing 48-23. His team is about to lose its fourth game in five weeks. He broke through the line and sacked Jimmy Garoppolo, a kid who last year at this time was playing in front of 5,000 fans at Austin Peay. Houston then celebrated so hard that he jumped into the air and injured his knee. The Bears fear he's done for the season.
I always -- always -- feel terrible for these athletes when they suffer these devastating knee injuries, but it's hard to find sympathy when a player brings it upon himself. I suppose that's what growing up in the NFL as a member of the Raiders will do to you -- you know that you won't be winning many games, but by golly, you will gloat and celebrate after meaningless sacks when your team is getting embarrassed.
Hey, I'm the best!
Wahoo! I got a sack! Look at me go!
Oops I shredded my knee!
--People wanted to compare this injury to Stephen Tulloch's, but at least Tulloch celebrated his sack of Aaron Rodgers when his team was winning, in a game his team eventually won. Houston's came when his team was spiraling in the toilet water, minutes away from losing by a thousand points. Houston's is much, much worse. It's even worse than Bill Gramatica's injury. At least Bill kicked a field goal. That's hard to do!
--A torn knee is no joke, but when Bears head coach Marc Trestman was asked about the injury, it appeared to be even more serious than initially believed.
"Lamarr had a knee and that is all that I know at this time," Trestman said.
Yikes! He "had a knee," as in, past tense, "had"??!! Where did it go? Has it vanished? #FindLamarrHoustonsKnee
--Speaking of celebrations, I'm not sure how this wasn't taunting on Don Jones.
But hey, it was a nice hit.
--It was a windy day in Foxboro, and there were moments of some light sprinkles, but overall it was a pleasant Autumn afternoon. So Trestman's choice of wardrobe -- an all-weather suit, as if he were preparing for a deluge -- said all that needed to be said about the Bears' mind-set on this day. The team did not prepare properly and just had no guts at all.
--Gronkowski's 46-yard touchdown will (rightfully) get most of the attention, but I particularly enjoyed the play in the second quarter, when Gronk was surrounded by three white jerseys and simply deflected them like a pinball bumper to gain an extra eight yards, leaving a trail of fully grown human bodies in his wake.
--I also liked Gronkowski all fired up, happily screaming at Bill Belichick when the coach came over for a high five. Belichick turned away and smirked, still unable to believe that this kid really exists in this world.
--You know it's a successful day in Foxboro when members of the End Zone Militia (or as Brandon Meriweather calls them, "one-ah-da Patriot ladies dats shootin da gunz) start using their muskets as air guitars.
Read more from Michael Hurley by clicking here, or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
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