The more things change, the more things stay the same.
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The win came at the most opportune time: The rest of the AFC East teams lost their openers.
But the reality is, Arizona played a pretty good New England team and almost won, so there are some positives to the game.
Is Tom Brady jealous of Jimmy Garoppolo? To kick off 2016, they started down 24-3 and scored 30 of the next 33 to get a win.
Despite slogging through much of the game, Arizona had a chance to grab a lead with:36 left, but Chandler Catanzaro’s 47-yard field goal attempt sailed wide left, handing Jimmy Garoppolo his first win as an National Football League starter and the Cardinals their first loss in a season opener since Bruce Arians’ first year as head coach in 2013.
“After that, you are just playing”. Dinked and dunked their way down the field on drives, and if it wasn’t for a pair of turnovers the Cardinals may not have even been in the game.
It’s probably why Belichick scoffed at the idea that the offense was at all watered down for Garoppolo in his first regular-season start.
Against former defensive coordinator Rex Ryan, now Buffalo’s head coach, the Ravens limited the Bills to 160 yards and sacked former teammate Tyrod Taylor twice.
“I mean, I’m really, really concerned about the story line”, Belichick deadpanned. We got a good complementary game. The other way to look at it is that Brady was out, Gronk was out, and they still couldn’t get the win. “What I’m doing next year is of no importance”.
The running game was just OK. Jameis knows what to do. After Arizona had taken a 21-20 lead, he directed a 13-play, 61-yard drive that ended with Stephen Gostkowski’s 32-yard field goal that proved to be the game victor with 3:44 to play. I don’t know if there has been another team in history that could do it as well as the Patriots. That is legit crowd noise. Here’s to hoping we don’t pay this guy next offseason. “This will help us for next week vs. Arizona”.
The Cardinals made it to the NFC championship game last season, but Garoppolo threw for 264 yards and a touchdown to lead the Patriots to a 23-21 victory on Sunday night.
That scenario could land the Patriots a good draft pick or two for Garoppolo, possibly even a first-rounder. They gave us all we could handle tonight. New England will have three more games until Brady returns. “I thought it was bad initially but just gutted it out and was able to finish the game”. So, we have to be on it. “You don’t get those things when you’re playing”, Brady said on the program. “And obviously, I’ve seen it with a couple of quarterbacks in my time here”.
“We got to regroup”, he said.
This offense looks balanced; Garoppolo looks like a gem; Brady is coming back, and the defense looked impressive against legit competition in Week One. It’s a good start to the season. “He’s got good vision”, Belichick said.
Much has been made of Brady and Garoppolo’s relationship and some took the “smoother operation” comment as Garoppolo being happy now that Brady is now gone for the first four weeks.
But there’s a problem with that: Garoppolo is a free agent after the 2017 season.
“There are many areas of concern with this roster, but the wide receiver position will not hold us back”, a Chargers source told Football Insiders. There was a lot of close games yesterday, the two-point conversion in the Raiders-Saints game, the ebbs and flows of that game and the Jacksonville-Green Bay game.
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Garoppolo showed a lot against a talented Cardinals defense, and he could easily be their future play at quarterback, and not the distant future either.
