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Week 7 Patriots vs Jets Social Commentary: The Rob Gronkowski Rodeo

The Patriots were victorious. How did the game look over social media?

By Rich Hill
Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports

The Patriots have started slowly over the past couple of weeks and they were never going to get an easy play off against this Jets defense. Still, the offense was going to produce in some fashion. The weight of the game hinged upon the success of the Patriots defense against the the Jets offense.

I'd say we witnessed Ryan Fitzmehgic on Sunday. He made key third down conversions that were fantastic and important, but he couldn't generate any sort of production on first and second down. Teams can't win if they don't move the ball early on downs and the Fitzmagic ran out late in the game as the Patriots defense made enough plays to force the Jets offense to punt the ball.

Still, the Patriots didn't force nearly as many turnovers as they should have. The Patriots could have picked off at least three passes from deflections that went right through the hands of Malcolm Butler or Rob Ninkovich. That's going to reverse with both the Jets and the Patriots- New York's going to turn the ball over a lot more later in the year, while the Patriots are going to eventually capitalize on these opportunities.

Yes. Yes he did.

Did anyone else notice how clear we could hear the sounds on the field? We could hear every single adjustment by Tom Brady. I'm going to dive deep to see if I can pick anything up from Brady's presnap calls and adjustments. Let me know if you have any theories in the comments section.

New England was super fortunate that Chris Ivory was battling a tight hamstring after his first carry. But. This Patriots defensive line is really, really good. Dont'a Hightower was an absolute force, Jamie Collins is playing well, Chandler Jones and Rob Ninkovich were stout on the edge (and Jabaal Sheard is possibly better than both and he didn't even play), and the defensive tackles were doing a great job of not allowing the Jets to move the line of scrimmage down the field.

Malcom Brown isn't a great player yet, but he's quickly becoming the team's leading defensive tackle, alongside Dominique Easley. This is why the Patriots invested back-to-back first round picks on these players. They both have special traits that will help New England stop really good offenses on a weekly basis.

I can't wait to do my strike zone this week. I feel like Brady actually had more off-target throws than at any point this season, but that's probably due to volume. His numbers suffered from a season's worth of drops in a single game and the Patriots still beat the top defense in the league.

Think about that. The Patriots were without their starting left tackle and his replacement, their starting left guard, and their starting running back, and they still walked all over the top defense. The defense improves every week and the offense is operating at 50% efficiency. This is going to be a scary team when it gets cold outside.

This is possibly the greatest Vine in the history of sports. Maybe even the world.

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