But the Patriots needed a little help.
Advertisement
Following the Arizona Cardinals’ Week 1 loss to an undermanned New England Patriots team, Cards head coach Bruce Arians didn’t mince words with regard to poor performances from some of his players. Butler mishandled it initially, but recovered well to get the ball down for Catanzaro, but the timing was off by a split-second and the kick sailed left. However, Catanzaro was making no excuses saying, “Just an old-way miss”. Keim said Arizona felt “pretty strongly” about the defensive plan Arizona had in place but the Cardinals “just didn’t execute”. If you don’t spend all your waking hours on Twitter, however, and you actually have a life, you might have missed the glorious observations straight from the few-years-ago brain of New England’s very own Jimmy Garoppolo. “You’re angry, disappointed, embarrassed, and that’s the way we should all feel”, Keim said while speaking on Sports 98.7 FM in Phoenix.
While the Fake Brady wandered the parking lot, Brady’s replacement, Jimmy Garoppolo, impressed in his debut. He misfired on a few throws, but otherwise made some nice throws and ran the offense seemingly in flawless order most all game long. At halftime, he was 10/16 passing, 133 yards, touchdown, with 106 yards in the first quarter.
“One of the things that has not happened around here and will not happen again”, Arians said, “or you won’t be here”.
To his credit, Blount’s third quarter saw him carry six Cardinals defenders to the end zone, the 10-point lead he gave to the Patriots raising the energy levels amongst fans.
“I mean, I’m really, really concerned about the story line”, Belichick deadpanned.
“It wasn’t just the young players”, he said, “but it was a lot of young players that got caught up in everything that was going on”.
Belichick said he was really proud of their team tonight adding that he thought they got great effort from all three phases and did well in the game. The Cardinals were pass-heavy all game and Johnson had limited reps, he looked primed to explode versus New England and it was fortunate he was not as heavily involved as he perhaps should have been.
Individually, rookie cornerback Brandon Williams was under the microscope, and stood out as a weakness on a couple of key plays.
Arizona’s Carson Palmer threw for 271 yards and two touchdowns, both to Larry Fitzgerald.
On that 45-yard run, Johnson spun away from tacklers at the line of scrimmage, put his hand on the ground to steady himself, then stiff-armed a defender before racing down the field.
Fitzgerald finished with eight catches for 81 yards and two touchdowns, the 99 and 100 of his great career. I think that’s a good thing, though. I believe in the guys that I have in this room.
On his first drive he marched the Patriots down field in about four minutes and connected with Chris Hogan for a 37-yard, Brady-like touchdown pass.
The only turnover of the first half led to Arizona’s lone first-half point.
Advertisement
Though Garoppolo admitted he was “amped up” before kickoff, he never looked anything other than calm on the field, doing his best Brady imitation in many ways. The Cardinals drew a penalty for a choreographed celebration.
