Patriots Player Power Rankings: Brady and Blount keep their Colt-crushing streaks alive

LeGarrette Blount celebrates a touchdown with quarterback Tom Brady in the second half of an NFL football game. AP Photo/John Minchillo

By Henry McKenna @McKennAnalysis

October 19, 2015

2 minutes to read

COMMENTARY

It wasn’t the typical Colts-thrashing Patriots have grown accustomed to in the Andrew Luck era.

While the Patriots got a 34-27 win over the Colts Sunday night, Luck jumped out to an 7-0 early lead — and the lead changed six times.

But to start the second half, the Patriots went ahead 27-21, as Tom Brady hit Rob Gronkowski for an 25-yard touchdown pass. It seemed to instill a sense of futility amongst the Colts, only deepened by the failed fake punt attempt. And the Patriots controlled the second half, never losing the lead.

Here are the Patriots player power rankings.

1. Whoever designed this formation: Where ever you are (probably Indianapolis), whoever you are (probably Chuck Pagano), thank you.

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2. Tom Brady: The Patriots offensive line is not good at pass protection. And yet, Brady’s offense set a franchise record for points through five games.

3. LeGarrette Blount: In his second-worst career performance against the Colts, Blount rushed the ball 16 times for 93 yards and a touchdown. He also caught his first receiving touchdown of his career on his only catch of the day.

3. Jamie Collins: Buzz words like “athletic freak’’ are frustrating because they’re vague and often misused. So here’s some video context for Collins’ athletic freakishness.

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4. Chandler Jones: The defensive end had 2.5 sacks. He got in on two third-down sacks and forced the Colts to punt. In a sense, he ended 16 percent of the Colts’ drives.

5. Bill Belichick: When he invents trick formations, they work — really well. But also, he provided us with this moment.

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6. Danny Amendola: Amendola doubled his season yardage total with a 105-yard night. Rob Gronkowksi deserves credit for some of these yards, as the tight end commanded a lot of defensive attention in the first half.

7. Josh Kline: With the Colts leading 14-10, the Colts got a pick-six on Brady, and followed it with a surprise onside kick. Offensive lineman Kline jumped on the ball, and the Patriots retook the lead on a Blount touchdown.

8. Dominique Easley: Easley invented a new pass-rush move: the 6-2 split.

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9. Rob Gronkowski: Gronk (50 yards, 1 touchdown) had the same stat line as Julian Edelman. But even when quiet in terms of production, Gronk was responsible for opening up the rest of the passing game, and Edelman was responsible for Brady’s first interception of the season (which is why Edelman doesn’t make this week’s rankings).

10. Malcolm Butler: No one has dropped more potential interceptions in a game than Butler did against the Colts. Yes, I’m picking knits. It was an otherwise good day for Butler.