Fun win.
Hard to watch at times. Were there four official decisions overturned? That is really embarrassing. They were again just terrible. While I got more steamed about the bad calls against the Patriots, the incompetence seemed to be mostly unbiased. Bring back the replacements.
QB
How does Brady find Gronkowski on that cross-field throw? Gronkowski said, after the game, that he could not see Brady - how did Brady see him? And fire a perfect hit-him-in-the-visor pass? He took one huge (penalized) hit to the ribs from Watt, but none of the sacks were big hits. Really victimized by drops this year.
RB
Bolden looked really good in his limited action. Hit by Jared Crick and carried him, then three other defenders, an extra five yards. Got hit in the backfield and still turned the corner on another run. White looked good - scored up the middle against a tough goal-line defense, and looks good in space. In general a weakness, but they looked good against a mediocre run defense. White had that huge catch over the defender that was one of the overturned string of plays - great hands and leap.
WR/TE
LaFell's hands clearly are an issue - reverting to his Carolina baseline. Martin looks elusive. Amendola picks up nice yardage over the middle, knowing when to dart sideways and when to go low and dive forward to maximize yardage. Love it when teams don't cover Gronk, especially on third and long. Thanks guys. Smart to manage snap count, but he looked fine out there.
OL
Yikes. Vollmer seems to be playing left tackle like a right tackle - he rotates to the right after the snap. That's a problem when you put your back to the rusher. The Patriots switched from their OL rotation, and these guys still struggle with communication. Brady is getting hit and sacked a lot. Big weakness at tackle.
DL
Dominant. We came in hearing about Watt, Wilfork, Clowney, Mercilus, and left hoping Hoyer is OK. Crushed that offensive line. The DL keeps improving. Hicks and Branch keep getting better. Hope Easley is OK - didn't look terrible - he left lifting his leg up at the knee to stretch the thigh muscles - hopefully a muscle thing. Ninkovich did a great job diagnosing the wildcat plays - consistently hit the ball-carrier. Houston ran three or four, with zero success due to the Pats D-line.
LB
Mayo also showing improvement. I am frustrated that he is not wearing the green dot. He has clearly outplayed Freeney the past three weeks. A playoff rotation of Hightower/Collins/Mayo should be impressive.
Secondary
Butler and Ryan seemed to play a lot of man single coverage, and really shut Hopkins down. Butler is amazing playing to the end of the play - a couple big catches he was able to knock out as the receiver tried to pull the ball into his body. Couple of textbook pass defenses from Ryan. No noticeable impact from missing McCourty. New guy Leonard Johnson looked really good - two big break-ups in big situations.
Special teams
Another muffed punt; Martin playing the role of Harper - Houston got the ball around the 20 and didn't score. Nice. With all the block-in-the-back penalties, really encourages an auto fair catch whenever you are leading. Amendola was all over the field catching short sideline punts in traffic - why not just knock some of those out of bounds rather than risk racing to field the ball surrounded by defenders? The Houston kicker didn't have the leg for a 54-yard attempt - that is surprising now that kickers seem to convert those routinely.
