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Rob Gronkowski

Pats Posits: Is this just fantasy?

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Last night I had the chance to sit in the Draft Kings luxury box for the game and well, this was a night that may never be topped in my Patriots fandom. I was able to bring my wife to her first game and let’s just say the bar that was set will be near impossible to top for her. Free food, free drinks, free programs and the best seats I’ve ever watched a game at Gillette from. I’m still processing the night and hence, a delay on the posits about the game.

Stack this one right up there with my best live game memories — 2006 AFCDG in San Diego, the 2009 opener, 2014 vs Broncos and now this one, 2018 vs Packers. Wow, a huge night on and off the field!

The game itself was another nice reminder that the Patriots are on an insane sports run. They’re stepped outside their box on defense. Gave Cordarrelle Patterson a bunch of carries and watched Josh Gordon put up his best night yet. I don’t want to call it Gordon’s breakout game yet because even at five catches for 130 yards and a touchdown I’m not quite sure we’ve seen the ceiling with him yet.

The Pats were undermanned, didn’t play all that great without Michel and Gronk, but they did what they always do. Execute the gameplan. Play good fundamental football across the board. Don’t beat themselves. That was enough to beat another historically great player, Aaron Rodgers.

Here are some quick posits as I remain in recovery mode from a perfect evening. Thank you again to Draft Kings!

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We’re Burying Rob Gronkowski Now?

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I took a quick trip to the alternate universe known as Boston sports talk radio yesterday and heard that apparently Rob Gronkowski, with just one touchdown, is on death watch now. This was echoed on twitter where Mike Giardi was making some points like these:

Yup, the guy who missed the game last week after HIS BACK LOCKED UP and has been dealing with an ankle injury since Week 3 looked labored early on in the very next game. Giardi mentions the injuries Gronk has experienced in his initial tweet, then asks a commenter if he thought Gronk’s stats would look like this. I don’t get it. How can you point out his injuries then call it a surprise his stats aren’t their usual dominant level? Would you be surprised if Gronk only had 29 catches through seven games, four of which came without Julian Edelman drawing any coverage, and two of those came also while dealing with the ankle injury? Is that a huge red flag? Personally, I’m just happy he’s not on IR and has plenty of time to get healthy before the playoffs.

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Pats Posits: Balanced Pats Show They Can Play with Anyone

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The Patriots outlasted the Chiefs on Sunday, delivering the shootout everyone thought they saw coming with a 43-40 win. Not to toot my own horn but I feel like my gameplan was especially accurate this week, right down to the final prediction. I’ve got a good bead on the team this year and while you never want to give up 40 points, I still believe this is one of the most solid Patriots teams in recent seasons.

This is a new NFL, and all that really matters is surviving against an offense as good as the Chiefs, just as the Chiefs must’ve felt the same way about the Patriots. Defenses can’t dominate anymore. It just comes down to getting red zone stops and making the plays that matter at the end. That’s what the Patriots did last night and they continue to show great mental toughness as all Belichick teams tend to do.

The offense continues to make strides behind Sony Michel‘s running and the development of Josh Gordon. The defense had three bad plays but otherwise did everything you can ask from a defense facing such a diverse and explosive offense. The special teams were great as far as field goals go and terrible at kickoffs.

So yeah, it wasn’t all rainbows but the corrections are extremely specific and fixable. This Patriots team executed the gameplan nearly perfectly for 90 percent of the game, but even just those few plays where they messed up were enough to take the contest down to the final possession. If this team stays intact for the next few months they’re going to be right there in the hunt at the end per usual.

More on everything from the first epic regular season win of 2018 in the Posits…

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Patriots Gameplan: Week 2 at Jacksonville Jaguars

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Week Two is here and the Patriots face a tough AFC Championship rematch on the road in Jacksonville. How many times have we seen these kinds of games early in the season? The young upstarts are looking for a franchise-altering win. Sometimes, like the 2009 and 2010 Jets,  they live up to the hype. But often the emotional drain of beating the Patriots makes the young upstarts sleepwalk through the rest of their season.

More often than not the Patriots just prove their still the Patriots.

There’s no question the Jaguars are a talented team, but talented teams are hit or miss when they go against methodical football machines. If the Jags play with the kind of energy that the 2009 Jets did, they could and should exact their revenge. The Patriots are in it for the long haul though and even a loss in Florida that exposes flaws will be just a bump in the road of their development toward December and January.

It’s always fun to have an exciting road game against a potential new rival early in the season. What do the Pats have to do to get the win and make the rest of the league Patriots-depressed again?

Here’s the gameplan.

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Pats Posits: And We’re Off…

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The Patriots got the 2018 season rolling yesterday with a 27-20 win over the Texans. For all the talk of last season and offseason drama, the Patriots very much looked like the same old Patriots that have laid waste to the league for the last 17 seasons.

Tom Brady finished with three touchdowns and one tipped-ball interception, looking nothing like an average 41-year old should look navigating an NFL pocket. The biggest difference was that he still had Rob Gronkowski, and the devastating QB-TE combo was just unstoppable.

This was nothing like last year’s maddening loss in the opener to the Chiefs. The Patriots have depth and new personnel issues, but they managed to rotate plenty of players in and showed that there isn’t any personnel problem that can’t be overcome with good coaching. Most exciting is a defense that has had an influx of improvement on a variety of fronts.

Yes, if you’re not a self-hating, self-punishing Patriots fan you should feel pretty good today. Clearly, the New England Football Machine is still firing on all cylinders and looks like they’ll once again be a formidable opponent for every team they face.

Let’s fire off a bunch of Posits and we finally get into the regular season flow!

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20 Questions About 2018 Patriots

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We’re a mere 10 days away from the opening of Patriots training camp, one of the most exciting times of the football season, when hope springs eternal, no one has gotten severely injured yet and every team has a shot at the Super Bowl. For the Patriots it’s another bonus chance getting to watch Bill Belichick and Tom Brady add to their unprecedented run.

These seasons are fleeting, we’re already on borrowed time, so it’s best to savor every moment.

The 2018 Patriots should be a big switch from the 2017 team. Just as the 2015 team was decimated by injuries and the 2016 team bounced back, this will be another opportunity for the team to put a bunch of injuries and a disappointing ending behind them.

There will be new faces, returning faces and hopefully, unexpected faces emerging. As we continue to count down, here are 20 questions that are facing this edition of the Pats.

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Who’s Fueling the Patriots Internal Dissension Frenzy?

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As you’re all aware of by now, on Friday morning there were murmurs that something BIG was going to happen with the Patriots. Something that, in the words of Jerry Thornton, would be a 9.5 on the Richter scale, something that would instantly overshadow Thursday’s Edelman suspension.

Notably, it wasn’t ESPN or the mainstream beat guys tantalizing us and having us brace for the worst. It was compadres like Jerry, and the lesser-known blogger types like myself. Now, I don’t claim to have sources. I have people who occasionally tell me things, sometimes they’re true, sometimes not. As a blogger who is unconcerned with breaking news, I never run with anything in an attempt to be first.

I prefer to let things play out and stick to my mantra of this being a Patriots football blog, not a Patriots rumor blog. I know that seems to go against the stereotype of me sitting in my mom’s basement, trying desperately to break a bit of news that will put me in the spotlight, but that’s what I’ve been doing for over a decade.

And I heard the same rumblings that my fellow bloggers were reporting, so like everyone else I was waiting on pins and needles. As I pondered what it might be I came to the realization that only three Patriots people truly mattered to me — BB, TB and Gronk. Anything outside of that trio and I wouldn’t even blink. There’s just no one left who is untouchable outside of maybe Dont’a Hightower.

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