Nobody saw that coming.
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Injuries play a big factor in this one, as Rob Gronkowski will once again stay on the sidelines. Most pundits had already ticked a “1” in the L column for the old Pats. Jimmy Garoppolo completed 24 of 33 passes for 264 yards and a touchdown.
Ndamukong Suh. He’s one of the NFL’s crown villains (though we had a heated discussion in the tiny Comcast office at Gillette this week when I alleged that Suh isn’t that bad and his benign dirty plays are blown out of proportion) and commands a double-team on most every play. Overall, Garoppolo orchestrated five scoring drives (two touchdowns and three field goals). The latter, to James White, was Garoppolo’s shining moment of the game. The game has changed to where they don’t want quarterbacks to run that much anymore. What if, people will ask, Brady replaces a thriving Garoppolo and proceeds to play poorly for his first few games? “That usually happens early in the season, especially if you have limited information to go off of”.
Brady returns against the Browns in Week 5. And then working through his history of being at the 49ers and Detroit with Mike Martz, so it’s quite a bit of experience against us and understanding how we play and taking a look at the offensive systems that he’s been in that have really influenced him in the way that they’ve played us.
Of all the teams in the league, the one that both has the need for a young quarterback and the wealth of draft picks to afford the Patriots’ asking price is Cleveland.
Having negotiated Week 1 of Tom Brady’s suspension better than anyone expected, the Patriots are – in the public’s mind – playing with house money. Rest assured, he is angry right now. Dan Marino holds the club mark with 155 consecutive starts (including postseason) from 1983-93, though he did not make every start in the regular season of his rookie year in 1983. Start Foster vs. the Patriots. This high volume of successful once-backups speaks to the way the Patriots draft smart leaders as quarterbacks, not necessarily big name college stars.
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Wes Welker, now out of the league as his history of concussions scares off potential employers, told a Miami radio station Friday morning that he called his old friend to see if he wanted to get dinner the night before Sunday’s Patriots-Dolphins game at Gillette Stadium. It is one thing for Jimmy Garoppolo to play well “with house money”, but now that fans and teammates have expectations from Garoppolo, it will be interesting to see how he copes with this additional pressure.
