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FOXBOROUGH - Those of us who don't do Showtime are getting to know the show Inside The NFL thanks to the NFL Network. They begin every show with four guys sitting around discussing "What did you learn from Week (fill in the blank)?"
So, let's localize it. What did you learn from the Patriots after their 34-9 dismantling of the Detroit Lions on Sunday at Gillette Stadium?
Jonas Gray went from the most famous player in the NFL to the most humbled almost overnight.
The Patriot defense is so good that they simply take the best guy out of the game and turn the quarterback into an incompletion machine.
The Patriot offense is so good that they can look at the top run defense in the league, clear their throats and bombard the Lion defense with a balanced passing attack, all the while bringing in a running back off the street and still get key rushing yardage.
Detroit happens to be the third straight division leader the Patriots have beaten soundly, but the real top team in the NFC North is the next opponent of the Patriots, the Green Bay Packers. The Patriots basically took the best the Lions could throw at them, tossed it aside, and overwhelm them with the best the Patriots could throw at them.
In some ways, the Lions helped the Patriots out. Matthew Stafford wound up with the lowest completion percentage for a quarterback against the Patriots since the merger, but there were several key drops by Lion receivers. Tom Brady was able to find receivers that at times were wide open, but that was largely thanks to receivers finding zone seams all game long and almost no man-to-man coverage. Stafford had a huge blunder in the fourth quarter on a fourth and ten play where he had an easy first down by running for it, but instead slid for the first down and was a yard shy of the first down when he began his slide.
 LeGarrette Blount made his triumphant return to the Patriots on Sunday with 2 rushing touchdowns and a 6.5 yards per carry average. (USA TODAY Images) |
We'll begin with the disciplining of Gray. Gray spent the entire game on the bench, his helmet on and his mouthguard in place, waiting to get in the game. On Friday, Gray was late to a practice thanks to the fact that his cellphone did not go off. Bill Belichick, like he did earlier this year with Darrelle Revis, sent Gray home. Unlike Revis, who did play the weekend of his missed practice, Gray missed the entire game as punishment.
Gray had to sit (or stand) on the bench and watch LeGarrette Blount make his Patriot return. Blount was dumped by Pittsburgh earlier this week after leaving a Monday night game against Tennessee early due to being disgruntled over lack of playing time. Blount came back to the team he finished well with last year and rushed for 78 yards on 12 carries and a 6.5-yard average with two touchdowns. The NFL is now very much a quarterback league, and Blount coming in literally off the street and doing as well as he did underscores that element. It should also send a strong message to Gray, who will probably never be late to practice ever again.
So many times over the course of the year, the Patriots will take away the top offensive threat of the other team and dare the team to beat them with the other guys. The target for the Patriot defense this week was Calvin "Megatron" Johnson, the obvious choice. Sure enough, Brandon Browner out-physicalled Megatron for most of the game. Megatron finished with 4 catches for 58 yards. Revis was chiefly responsible for Golden Tate, and despite Tate making some hay early on, Revis was stunning for most of the game, leading the Patriots with four passes defensed. Detroit had no running game at all to try and open up the passing game; the Lions averaged only 3.6 yards per carry as a team.
Last week at Indianapolis, the Patriots ran to win. On Sunday, they passed to win. Brady finished with 38 of 53 passing for 349 yards, two touchdowns (both to Tim Wright) and a 94 passer rating (lowered a bit thanks to a pick in the third quarter by former Patriot James Ihedigbo). Julian Edelman and Brandon LaFell bedeviled the porous Detroit secondary with 89 and 98 yards respectively and 20 catches collectively. Rob Gronkowski chipped in with 78 yards receiving on five catches. Detroit had the best run defense in the league, but Brady merely went through the air and Blount still had great rushing numbers anyway.
An unsung hero for the Patriots was punter Ryan Allen. After the second offensive possession for the Patriots, a second straight three-and-out, Allen took a low snap one yard deep in his own end zone. He recovered and boomed a 66-yard punt which put the Lions on their own 21. After a three-and-out, Brady led the Patriots on their first touchdown drive. The Allen punt seemed to swing momentum towards the Patriots for the remainder of the contest.
Penalties were the only thing that prevented this from being even more of a Patriot rout. The Patriots were flagged eleven times for 84 yards. Three penalties in particular were real harmful; a second quarter holding call on Jamie Collins negated a demonstrative sack of Stafford by Rob Ninkovich, but the drive still ended in a Detroit punt anyway. Late in the first half, a 31-yard pass to Edelman was wiped out on a holding call by Nate Solder, and the Patriots had to settle for a Stephen Gostkowski field goal to end the half. And a third quarter 74-yard punt return for a touchdown by Danny Amendola was nullified by an illegal block in the back by Patrick Chung. Instead of the touchdown, the Patriots suffered a three-and-out deep in their own territory.
So next week, the Patriots travel to Lambeau Field in Green Bay for what many experts will call a Super Bowl preview. The Patriots will have to take on a hot Packer squad, but the NFL will be salivating at perhaps a more compelling quarterback matchup than Brady-Manning, this one being Brady-Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers has as many Super Bowl wins as Manning (one), but some NFL observers feel that Rodgers is the best quarterback in the league and not Brady or Peyton Manning. The weather won't faze the Patriots, but Green Bay is one of those opposing venues that no one wants to play at. The last time the Patriots went to one of those places, it was this game from Hell in Kansas City.
This Patriot team is much better equipped to win this game versus that one. It should still be one of the best games of the year in the league. The Packers were catapulted into first place thanks to the Patriots beating Detroit. But don't expect any warm hospitality in return from the Packers.
Meanwhile, despite the home cooking, Mike McCarthy will have plenty to worry about with Belichick and company coming to town.
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