Only surprise about Patriots’ victory is that anyone was surprised
COMMENTARY
The last time the New England Patriots were as heavy an underdog as they were heading into Sunday’s season-opening game at the Arizona Cardinals (who were 9 1/2-point favorites) it was back prior to Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002, a game in which the St. Louis Rams were favored by 14 points.
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So, we probably should have figured it would turn out this way.
There was no Tom Brady (suspended), no Rob Gronkowski (injured). There was no Rob Ninkovich (suspended), nor any definitive assurances from the offensive line.
No worries.
The Patriots used backup quarterback and Teen Dream Jimmy Garoppolo in the first post-Deflategate, on-field moment for the franchise. They surgically silenced the Cardinals with a 23-21 victory that gave the rest of the NFL pause, one most other teams hoped would at least be delayed.
New England is still in your team’s way, with or without its future Hall of Fame quarterback.
Here we are, not even all the way through Week 1 of the 2016 NFL season, and the Patriots already have a one-game lead on the rest of the AFC East. The New York Jets and Miami Dolphins gasped away their opening contests to the Cincinnati Bengals and Seattle Seahawks, respectively, Sunday afternoon, while the Buffalo Bills never really showed up for their opener against the Baltimore Ravens.
It might as well be over. When can they clinch the bye?
So much for the 0-4 start some rivals hoped the Patriots might slither their way into without Brady, suspended for the first four games of the season for something about failing to properly calculate local atmospheric pressure. In Brady’s absence, Garoppolo threw for 264 yards and a nifty touchdown to new wide receiver Chris Hogan in the game’s first quarter. But it was the 13-play, six-minute drive that Garoppolo led his team on in the final minutes of play that planted the seeds of something special with the backup. Down 21-20 with less than 10 minutes to play, the Patriots drove 61 yards, leading to a 32-yard Stephen Gostkowski field goal that gave the Patriots a 23-21 lead. That would stick all the way until Arizona kicker Chandler Catanzaro missed a 47-yarder with less than a minute to play.
Not that it was shades of Brady leading his team on its final drive against the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl, but Garoppolo’s calm presence in his first NFL start exhibited the “Do Your Job” mantra that has become a call for success under head coach Bill Belichick. Yet once news came down Friday night that Gronkowski would be out with his hamstring injury, common thought had seemed to shift almost universally in the Cardinals’ favor. This would have been a tough game for the Patriots with or without Brady. But looking to Garoppolo, without the team’s most explosive offensive target? Forget the opener and let’s regroup for the Dolphins at home in Week 2.
It’s like none of us have watched the last 16 years.
“It’s good for the whole team. Coming into a tough environment like this, it’s good to see everybody responding,” said Garoppolo, not quite yet in the throes of a quarterback controversy with Brady set to rejoin his classmates for Week 5 at the Cleveland Browns. “We were confident going into the game and it showed.”
He’s 1-0 on the road with the next three games at home in Gillette Stadium, where the Patriots removed those gargantuan banners of Brady that the team erected on the lighthouse tower last week. Team president Jonathan Kraft hinted Sunday that the plan was to take them down before the regular season began on his pregame radio appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub. But you have to wonder if Belichick let his view of having New England’s Touchdown Jesus overlooking the 24-year-old Garoppolo influence that decision.
“We wanted to do something to remember him for that time and symbolize the fact that he’s on everybody’s mind,” Kraft said. “We wanted him to know everybody loves him and has his back.’’
To think, Brady might not have ever known otherwise.
This is still his team, of course, but for the time being all faith has to be lent to Garoppolo, who is either going to convince the Patriots coaching staff that he’s the right man to take the torch from the four-time champion, or, more likely, show enough on the field to return a first-round draft pick in exchange for his services.
“He made a lot of good plays,” Belichick said. “Against a good defense.”
There was a costly fumble mixed in the middle, but Garoppolo and his quick release were more weapon than they were placeholder. The coaching staff seemed committed to not delivering anything that would get him into too much trouble, a blueprint he followed to impressive fashion. This was a control of the game we had yet to see from Garoppolo, an aspect of Brady’s game that was immediately evident when he took over for Drew Bledsoe back in 2001.
“When you have confidence in your teammates and they have confidence in you, it’s easy to stay poised,” Garoppolo said.
Heavy underdogs for the first time in nearly 15 years, the Patriots didn’t escape the site of one of their greatest achievements (Malcolm Butler) and grandest failures (David Tyree) thanks only to a shank on the Cardinals’ side. That assessment discounts what Garoppolo meant to the Patriots. It ignores what Julian Edelman (66 yards receiving) delivered as a constant presence. It doesn’t give credit to an offensive line that had Patriots fans rolling eyes during starting introductions, only to watch a competent unit roll out thanks to old coach/new coach Dante Scarnecchia. It doesn’t salute a defense that seemingly had the Cardinals’ offense in a funk it couldn’t escape for much of the evening.
No Brady. No problem.
We should have known better.
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