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I was comfortable losing this game as long as it was fairly competitive and I saw improvement to the offense. I mean, no Gronk or DA, a hobbled Seabass, going down to play a good team, in a dome, who was the “desperate team”, and rarely loses at home. That’s a lot to expect from a team playing with 14 rookies and an offense in transition. So I didn’t set my expectations too high. Clearly I was mistaken. For 54 minutes the Pats were in complete control of a game I thought they’d have trouble keeping competitive, I might have to upgrade my goal of a 5-3 first half start. 
…..And here we go
1. The defense went up against the first quality offense of the season, and passed. Probably worth a solid B to B+
2. The Secondary was the strong suite. It was the exception seeing a receiver wide open. I would say that a great majority of the Falcons receptions were highly contested by Pats DB’s Almost all of Gonsales’ catches were simply remarkable individual efforts, and the last long pass to Jones at the end of the game couldn’t have been covered any better.
With the exception of the Gregory miss on the first Gonzo TD, the tackling by the secondary was also excellent. No mega hits by this group, just good fundamental tackling.
3. The front 7 was also solid holding the Falcons to under 60 yds rushing while playing most of the game without Vince Wilfolk. The pass rush wasn’t horrible, but against a team playing without its starting LT, you’d think it would have been better, even though the rush was a fairly vanilla 4 man rush most of the time.
Jones had a few decent rushes, and Valano’s quick move on his sack was a thing of beauty. This was Rob Ninkovich’s most quiet game in the last 2 years. I hope all that new money in his pockets isn’t slowing him down.
4. On the offense, it was better. It was our first 30 point game. There were more “chunk yardage plays” and people were getting open. The most important improvement in my eyes was the Fact we vastly improved our average yards per completion to almost 16 ypc, and over 10 yards per attempt. Those would be big numbers last season.
5. The running game continues to look better every week. Its certainly more explosive that what we are used to. I should also mentioned that while Lagarrette Blount is not one of my favorite players, and anyone could have run through that hole on his TD run, I thought he ran the ball much harder tonight. Still not the pile pusher you’d like in a 250 lb RB, but improvement is improvement and should be acknowledged.
BTW - he definitely got screwed on that first down attempt. He was clearly over on the replay. Also did anyone else notice that when the side judge put his foot down to mark the spot, it seemed like when he put the ball down it was about 6 inches short of where his foot was.
6. Not to sound too much like a Jet fan, but the Pats were on the wrong side of several bad officiating calls. The bad call on that first down, the bad PI call on Talib, the non-call on the Jones push off, etc.
I would contend that Brady threw that 3rd down pass on the GL at Dobson just because it was so clear that Dobson was being tackled right in front of the ref
7. Like I said it was good to see us be throwing the ball deeper down field this year and getting improved results, but I still would like to see more passes to the TE’s and RB’s for some easy receptions.
8.Genreral thoughts on the weekend since I got to see some games before the Pats came on.
a. While I don’t want to slow the Peyton Manning crusade to sainthood, byr it should be noted that they HAVE played 3 of their first 4 games at home. And hat the Giants, Eagles and Skins are among the worst defenses in the league and the Ravens weren’t much better at the time.
b. BTW- its not gong to get much better in October either. In November they play a rough 4 game stretch against the Chiefs, Pats, Chiefs and Titans, all 4 have tough D’s. But before that there is very little that looks like they can slow Peyton down with the possible exception of the Colts
c. It will be frustrating to see how long the media pukes try to keep the “Gronk is ready but refuses to play” story. Even Florio has a post which set out all the rumors and then basically tells you that there isn’t much going on here.
I got some more thoughts, but its almost 3am and I’m having a tough time keeping awake. I’ll add more in the morning.
…..And here we go1. The defense went up against the first quality offense of the season, and passed. Probably worth a solid B to B+
2. The Secondary was the strong suite. It was the exception seeing a receiver wide open. I would say that a great majority of the Falcons receptions were highly contested by Pats DB’s Almost all of Gonsales’ catches were simply remarkable individual efforts, and the last long pass to Jones at the end of the game couldn’t have been covered any better.
With the exception of the Gregory miss on the first Gonzo TD, the tackling by the secondary was also excellent. No mega hits by this group, just good fundamental tackling.
3. The front 7 was also solid holding the Falcons to under 60 yds rushing while playing most of the game without Vince Wilfolk. The pass rush wasn’t horrible, but against a team playing without its starting LT, you’d think it would have been better, even though the rush was a fairly vanilla 4 man rush most of the time.
Jones had a few decent rushes, and Valano’s quick move on his sack was a thing of beauty. This was Rob Ninkovich’s most quiet game in the last 2 years. I hope all that new money in his pockets isn’t slowing him down.
4. On the offense, it was better. It was our first 30 point game. There were more “chunk yardage plays” and people were getting open. The most important improvement in my eyes was the Fact we vastly improved our average yards per completion to almost 16 ypc, and over 10 yards per attempt. Those would be big numbers last season.
5. The running game continues to look better every week. Its certainly more explosive that what we are used to. I should also mentioned that while Lagarrette Blount is not one of my favorite players, and anyone could have run through that hole on his TD run, I thought he ran the ball much harder tonight. Still not the pile pusher you’d like in a 250 lb RB, but improvement is improvement and should be acknowledged.
BTW - he definitely got screwed on that first down attempt. He was clearly over on the replay. Also did anyone else notice that when the side judge put his foot down to mark the spot, it seemed like when he put the ball down it was about 6 inches short of where his foot was.
6. Not to sound too much like a Jet fan, but the Pats were on the wrong side of several bad officiating calls. The bad call on that first down, the bad PI call on Talib, the non-call on the Jones push off, etc.
I would contend that Brady threw that 3rd down pass on the GL at Dobson just because it was so clear that Dobson was being tackled right in front of the ref
7. Like I said it was good to see us be throwing the ball deeper down field this year and getting improved results, but I still would like to see more passes to the TE’s and RB’s for some easy receptions.
8.Genreral thoughts on the weekend since I got to see some games before the Pats came on.
a. While I don’t want to slow the Peyton Manning crusade to sainthood, byr it should be noted that they HAVE played 3 of their first 4 games at home. And hat the Giants, Eagles and Skins are among the worst defenses in the league and the Ravens weren’t much better at the time.
b. BTW- its not gong to get much better in October either. In November they play a rough 4 game stretch against the Chiefs, Pats, Chiefs and Titans, all 4 have tough D’s. But before that there is very little that looks like they can slow Peyton down with the possible exception of the Colts
c. It will be frustrating to see how long the media pukes try to keep the “Gronk is ready but refuses to play” story. Even Florio has a post which set out all the rumors and then basically tells you that there isn’t much going on here.
I got some more thoughts, but its almost 3am and I’m having a tough time keeping awake. I’ll add more in the morning.
