Brady And Gronk Are Still Very Much Brady And Gronk, And Other Leftover Patriots Thoughts
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Patriots opened the season on Sunday with a victory. They were ... fine. It was an incomplete effort, one where the team was unable to turn a 24-6 lead in the second half into a comfortable win. The offense scored just six points in the second half, the defense allowed a pair of touchdowns, and the punt return unit gifted the Texans a free possession with good field position.
The Patriots were fine. Not great. But good enough for a win on this particular day.
There's plenty of time to talk about them. But for now, if you wouldn't mind, we ought to talk a little bit about the Texans. One might think that if any team might be immune to the "mystique" of Gillette Stadium (or whatever it is that makes NFL teams occasionally look like Pop Warner squads), the Texans would qualify. They played a damn fine game last year in Foxboro. The head coach is from Massachusetts and worked on the Patriots' staff for five years. The defensive coordinator ran the Patriots' defense during dynasty run number one. There should be nothing that leads to the Texans just breaking down and face-flopping on the Gillette Stadium turf.
And yet ...
Deshaun Watson couldn't decide whether to hand off to Lamar Miller or keep it for himself on the Texans' first play. Instead, he did neither, fumbling the ball. Dont'a Hightower recovered. The Patriots led 7-0 a little over a minute later.
And ...
After Rob Gronkowski made a debatable catch up the right seam with under a minute left in the first half, Bill O'Brien sat on his hands and hoped the play would be reviewed. After seeing a replay that showed a potential drop, and after seeing the Patriots hurrying to the line, O'Brien absolutely should have called timeout before the snap to provide more time for the officials to decide that the play needed to be reviewed. Perhaps it would have held up on replay, but 30 yards were at stake in a crucial moment. O'Brien did nothing.
And then ...
On the Texans' opening drive of the second half, trailing 21-6, they faced a fourth-and-1 at their own 37. They elected to punt. That was perhaps the sound decision, but it's hard to win in New England without taking a risk. Later, the Texans took that risk ... on a fourth-and-5 ... when they were well into field-goal range at the Patriots' 17-yard line. They passed up the opportunity for points in order to attempt a pass. It failed. It was odd. And then with 4:41 left, trailing 27-13, O'Brien decided to punt, apparently in an effort to ... not lose by more points?
Of course, Riley McCarron wiped away the weakness of that decision by muffing the punt and setting up a Houston score. But even that touchdown took forever -- two minutes and 20 seconds, to be exact -- to be scored, and that was only thanks in part to a pair of defensive holding penalties on Stephon Gilmore.
It just was a bit surprising for a team that seemed to have as good a chance as any opponent to walk into Gillette and hand the Patriots a loss. Instead, the Patriots improved to 57-2 against AFC opponents at home since 2007. Fifty-seven and two. What a joke.
Then again, this is the same Bill O'Brien who reportedly got his Texans stuck in rush hour traffic for a game at Gillette two years ago. And in that game two years ago, O'Brien challenged a play that pushed the Patriots back eight yards (a challenge initiated at the urging of his punter), and he also called a timeout with 1:00 left in the first half when he had no chance of getting the ball back. He also lost 27-0 to a rookie quarterback named Jacoby Brissett. (This is also quite the write-up from last year. Woof.)
The net result of Sunday's game, at least, is that despite an impressive showing in 2017, it might be a while before anyone in New England frets about another visit from the Houston Texans.
Now let's dip our toes into the first leftover thoughts of the season from the Patriots' 27-20 win over the Texans.
--After the soap opera offseason, you had to appreciate how quickly Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski were able to connect for a very Brady/Gronkowski touchdown. They just make scoring touchdowns look too easy.
Tight coverage from linebacker Zach Cunningham? Doesn't matter. Safety Kareem Jackson flying over for help? Honestly who cares? Brady is going to throw a touchdown to Gronkowski.
Ridiculous.
Those guys are fine.
--That touchdown, plus the diving 30-yard helmet catch up the right seam received the most attention in this game. For good reason. But I thought Brady's best ball of the afternoon was a different pass to Gronkowski. It came midway through the third quarter, on a third-and-3 from the New England 23. Brady took a shotgun snap and looked only at one man. He waited for Gronkowski to get a step on Cunningham and then perfectly fit in a pass to Gronkowski before he got to the safeties.
It had enough loft to get over the linebacker but enough zip to get into Gronkowski's hands quickly. It went for 30 yards on a drive that ended in a field goal. It was marvelous.
--Later on that drive, Brady threw a ball that I'm almost positive was intended for Chris Hogan. But Phillip Dorsett went ahead and caught it anyway.
It was that kind of day for Dorsett, who had the best game of his career.
--The Patriots recorded three sacks of Deshaun Watson, but that doesn't at all properly indicate what kind of impact that unit had on the game. In total, the Patriots were credited with 12 QB hits -- three apiece for Trey Flowers and Deatrich Wise, two for Adrian Clayborn, and one apiece for four others.
The best indication of what kind of afternoon those guys had came on a designed run by Watson on a first-and-goal from the 1-yard line. This is what Watson had to work with:
Again, that's a designed run. Surprise surprise, it went for a loss of four.
--They also should have had a safety. You could argue that Watson had a receiver "in the area" when he spiked the ball while being ripped to the turf in his own end zone. But officials are generally a bit stricter when the QB is in his own end zone (Tom Brady from Super Bowl XLVI, aka the only man to get called for intentional grounding on a deep ball over the middle, says hello), and it was beyond clear that Watson was simply spiking that ball in desperation. They also could have easily ruled that Watson was in Malcom Brown's grasp before making the desperation throw. Considering how delicate defensive linemen must be with quarterbacks these days, defenders might like a little leeway there.
--Hey speaking of hitting QBs, Deatrich Wise had a free shot on Watson late in the first quarter, when Flowers had the QB wrapped up down low. Considering a lot of players around the league are getting tagged for 15 yards for landing on quarterbacks after tackling them, I was curious to know if Wise in that split-second before hitting the quarterback has to carefully measure the force with which he delivers his hit.
Wise -- who was really a happy camper after this game -- was candid about it.
"I know the rules have changed a little bit, but as long as we play disciplined and use our technique, I think we'll be fine," Wise said. "Just don't hit with your head, and then when you hit him, roll off. It's tough. I'm not gonna lie. When you're coming full force coming to hit somebody, you just so happen to lay on 'em. But as long as you don't power-drive him down, or stay on him, as long as you get up, I think that's what they look for out there. [You can't do] the intnetional, 'I want to to hurt you' type play."
Wise also had a nice cooking analogy when discussing the difficulty of going after the quarterback while also remaining disciplined and not letting him break free.
"It's a balance between patience, discipline, and aggressiveness," Wise said. "It's kind of like ingredients. You don't put too much salt in, because it's nasty. Too much sugar is too sweet. Can't put too much of one or the other in, because it won't taste good. So it's kind of like, you have to blend all that together."
Again, Wise was having a good time. So he went into detail a bit when asked about his bowling celebration.
"Oh, that's spontaneous. All my moves are spontaneous," he said. "So whatever I feel at that particular time, it just happens. I don't have one more, or go-tos, it's like, I have my feeling at that moment. It just comes out."
Deatrich Wise, everybody. What a day.
--It is a new season, of course, and it didn't take long for this game to produce the first #FEROCIOUSJUKE and the first employment of the Zero Humans Defense. It was very nice of the Texans to help the Patriots get these milestones out of the way early.
The first #FerociousJuke belonged to ... Jeremy Hill. Unfortunately, Hill suffered a nasty-looking knee injury before the day's end. But this juke? It was ferocious.
Later in the game, Dorsett actually had a better juke. Its effects were grisly:
Julian Edelman, watching at home, was no doubt proud.
--And of course, the Zero Humans Defense was not difficult to spot.
If you're reading this, then you may not be a certified football guru. So allow me to share some true expert analysis: Defensively, that's not what you're looking for.
Come on, Houston. Be better than The Gap.
--I should probably get this out there now for selfish reasons, because I want to appear very SMAHT: Trey Flowers is the most underrated defensive player in the NFL. I've made this my thing. All summer. So as he starts to generate some real buzz and gain some real recognition around the league, remember where you heard the crazy man screaming about how underrated he is. It was right here, folks.
UPDATE!
I have been informed that Tony Romo made this exact statement after Flowers' fourth-quarter sack. DRATS! But I said it in August. So there, Tony. It's my take.
--So I'm not sure that the much-ballyhooed penalty for lowering the helmet exists anymore? No? If it did exist, then surely either Cordarrelle Patterson or Kevin Johnson was guilty on this play? Or perhaps they both were?
Either way, it's almost as if the NFL had no real intention of enforcing anything like the rule that was applied in the preseason. And it's almost as if the whole thing was a PR stunt. Now if only there had been a very tall, very muscular, very handsome, very charming sports writer who could've seen that coming. If only that had been the case.
--Patterson did some positive things, but you have to imagine most of it was negated by his penalty. That penalty was a five-yarder for an illegal shift on a third-and-1, a play on which Brady ran a QB sneak and picked up the first down. You never want to commit any penalty. You really don't want to commit a penalty on a play where your 41-year-old quarterback ends up taking a beating for nothing.
Brady's pass on the ensuing play was tipped at the line and intercepted. Pretty big penalty.
--On the list of potentially underrated or overlooked plays from Sunday, don't forget Devin McCourty's pursuit when DeAndre Hopkins reversed field on a failed screen pass. McCourty went from here:
To here:
To here:
Nice player.
--Sometimes fans get confused by the rules of the game. Frankly I don't understand why. When you have referee Tony Corrente on hand to explain penalties, it all makes simple sense. Here's a transcript of one of Corrente's announcements late in the fourth quarter:
[Officials huddle for 30 seconds]
"Holding, Offense, number 24. Ten-yard penalty. Repeat second down."
[A 30-second pause]
"Correction, the holding is on the defense. A five-yard penalty will be added to the end of the play, and an automatic first down."
Offense, defense, gold jacket, green jacket. Who gives a ...
--And now, for our final entry, here are some pictures of Bill Belichick celebrating the victory that moved him past Tom Landry for most all-time wins by a head coach:
Nice to see him so happy.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
