The grades are out and here are the things that I found most interesting:
Top Defensive Player: Devin McCourty (1.3)
Top Offensive Player: Tom Brady (6.9)
Worst Defensive Player: Brandon Spikes (-4.8)
Worst Offensive Player: Julian Edelman (-1.7)
Let’s start on the defensive side of the ball since that’s where there’s the most to talk about.
Brandon Spikes has been as up and down in the first three games as one can possibly be. He was the lowest graded defender in weeks 1 and 3, and the second highest graded defender in week 2. His -2.7 run defense score is glaring, especially with only 2 tackles and 1 stop. For a middle linebacker that is unacceptable. I can handle his poor coverage (-1.1) but if he’s not blowing up the run he’s useless out there. He did give up 88 yards on 3 pass completions as well.
Dont’a Hightower was the second lowest graded defender with a -2.0. Hard to get too down on a rookie in a game of this magnitude so early in his career, but if you want to know why the run defense was so bad the brunt of the blame has to come to him and Spikes.
Jerod Mayo was slight below average with a -0.9, but he did have 10 tackles and 5 stops.
The Patriots only had McCourty in the green for a positive grade in this game, he was thrown at 12 times and gave up just 6 completions.
Tavon Wilson gave up 3 receptions on 3 targets but only 1 yard of YAC.
Kyle Arrington struggled against Anquan Bolden giving up 3 catches on 4 targets for 43 yards.
The PFF graders gave the Pats a QB hit (Ninkovich) and 12 QB hurries. The official NFL game book gave them zero QB hits. Love and Jones were both credited with 4 hurries.
Vince Wilfork scored a -1.7. In last year’s AFCCG he scored a 7.0.
You know it’s a bad pass rush day when your two best pass rush scores are Kyle Love (0.3) and Ron Brace (0.2). Jones had a 0.1 and everyone else was at 0 or below. Yikes.
Well that paints the picture for the defense how about the offense…
Sebastian Vollmer played the whole game and was the third highest graded player on offense with a 3.6. He was in the green in both pass and run blocking , the only o-lineman to do so. This is a positive development.
Connolly (-1.9) and Mankins (-2.9) struggled in run blocking. Mankins was a positive 1.5 in pass blocking though.
Gronk was a -1.1 in run blocking, but 1.1 in pass blocking. The scorers had him staying in to pass block on only 8 plays.
Ryan Wendell was a positive 1.6 in run blocking, tying him with Vollmer. He has been one of the biggest surprises early this season.
Brady was lights out, but only 1 of 3 beyond 20 yards. He was most deadly in the middle of the field at 10-19 yards, where he was 5-5 for 80 yards. 25 of his 41 passes were under 10 yards away or behind the line of scrimmage.
Brandon Lloyd tore Cary Williams up for 8 catches on 10 targets for 98 yards.
Find all of our Notes on PFF’s Patriots Grades here.
