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Week 3 Patriots vs Jaguars Social Commentary: Tom Brady ties Bruce Armstrong for Patriots record

The Patriots dismantling of the Jaguars resulted in some pretty amazing reactions.

By Rich Hill
David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports

Thanks to a week of great preparation and a day of near-perfect execution, the Patriots were never in a place to lose against the Jaguars. The game was out of hand pretty early on as the Patriots never fell below a 99% chance of winning in the 2nd half. It let people have free range of Twitter. I'm thankful.

Cheers to the Patriots quarterback who tied the former left tackle with 212 games in a New England uniform. Armstrong has his number 78 retired by the franchise, even though he's not in the NFL Hall of Fame. He's an all timer.

And Brady will pass the record 212 games with his next game. Sorry, Bruce.

The last time Coleman officiated an Oakland Raiders game was the Tuck Rule game in the Patriots storybook Super Bowl run. He has reffed 16 Patriots games since that point in time.

It was a picture perfect scenario with former Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon in the booth calling the game, and with Blake Bortles fumbling a pass attempt for a first down that might have been categorized under the Tuck Rule if it were still in effect. For the record, Bill Belichick says that the officials got the call correct with the review.

Teams still have no idea how they're going to cover Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski. The Jaguars run a lot of zone, so Tom Brady would just motion receivers to draw away defensive backs and Gronk just ran into the openings for big gains. It's kind of simple.

The issue comes towards the red zone when the defense gets a little more congested. Defenses are just trying to beat up Gronk, which is kind of what the Patriots used to do to Tony Gonzalez when they didn't have a player who could cover him 1-on-1.

If officials are calling Gronkowski for offensive pass interference, hopefully they'll start to consistently call defensive pass interference. They made the right call on the goal line, when the Jaguars thought they made an interception, just a week after officials missed Jerry Hughes trying to get a piggy back up the seam.

The Patriots did a great job of stymieing the Jaguars attack. Outside of a big touchdown pass from Bortles to Allen Hurns, it didn't seem like the Jaguars could figure out anything on offense. It wasn't like the Patriots were doing anything excessively complicated, either. They mixed up their coverages, they mixed up their pressures, they focused on stopping the run, and they took away Bortles' favorite target in Allen Robinson.

That was basically it. When Bortles couldn't throw at Robinson, the Patriots pressure started to get home and the Jaguars quarterback had to make a bad throw at his second or third read. That was all she wrote.

That's just total dominance by the Patriots offense and defense. It involves a super efficient offense and a smothering defense that forced the Jaguars off the field early and often.

Sorry to the Dolphins. They were the target of plenty of jokes after they lost to the Jaguars and were absolutely taken to the woodshed by the Bills. So much for my AFC East runner-up pick.

I know it's early in the season, and that while most Patriots fans want an easy cruise to the division title, there's some aspect of fandom that wants the rest of the division to be good. They want the Patriots to win every game walking away, but they want the Bills and Dolphins to destroy opposing divisions, and for the Jets to finish 0-16. That's just the way it is.

Part of that desire is connected to the debate about divisional strength. Oh, the AFC East is weak, they say, the Patriots haven't had any competition in the division. We know that's wrong, but we want everyone else to see it, too. Watching the Jaguars beat the Dolphins feels like a hollow joke in The Daily Show where you laugh because of how devastating the truth actually remains.

The Dolphins lost to the Jaguars. The Dolphins lost to the Jaguars. The Dolphins lost to the Jaguars.

It's less and less funny every time I read it.

But how about the Patriots? They're off to one of the best starts in team history, and there's a lot of really great starts under Bill Belichick. But actually...

Did you know that this was just the fifth time in Belichick's 16 seasons as head coach that the Patriots opened up 3-0 (02, 04, 07, 13, 15).

The Patriots have only started 4-0 three other times under Belichick (04, 07, 13).

Just two Patriots teams have started 5-0 and 6-0 (04, 07).

Only the 2007 Patriots have reached the 7-0 mark under Belichick.

It's a long season. The Patriots are better in the second half of the season than they are in the first half. Only two Patriots teams (04, 07) posted a 7-1 or 8-0 record in the first half of the season, but seven teams (01, 03, 04, 07, 10, 11, 12) have closed out the year 7-1 or 8-0, and that's not including the Patriots resting their starters in the final week.

We appreciate the sentiment from a key member of the NFL Players Association.

And so it goes.

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