Tonight was a very special night for everyone in attendance at Gillette Stadium as it was banner night. The Patriots revealed the 2014 Super Bowl Championship banner prior to the game. In addition to the banner there was live music by the Dropkick Murphys and a special appearance by T-Pain to help celebrate last year’s championship.
But it was not all good for the Patriots as they lost Dominique Easley on the first drive of the game with a hip injury. Easley walked off the field slowly under his own power but did not return with what they are calling it a hip injury. In the post game presser Bill Belichick was asked for an update on Easley to which he replied to “No. I know you expected one.”
Brady to Gronkowski was the key to the Patriots win as the Steelers totally forgot about him on the first touchdown making the game 7-0. Gronk had this to say about his first touchdown “Our offense was doing a great job getting to the line. We were hustling and getting set throughout the whole offense. Tom [Brady] just saw it, made the quick throw and I just had to make the play. It was good execution overall by the offense.”
You would think they would only get fooled once well you’re wrong, it happened again and then again the Steelers just had problems with Gronk there was either nobody on him or he was being covered by a single guy. You can not cover Gronk with a single guy he will burn you all day and he did just that ending the day with 94 yards and 3 touchdowns.
But as usual it is not a Patriots game with some drama. This time Steelers side line had headphone problems. According to an ESPN report in the headsets they were using on the sideline they had to listen to the Patriots radio broadcast of the game (98.5 the Sports Hub) instead of talking to other coaches and coordinators. Tomlin really dug himself into a hole in his post game presser when asked about the headphones he replied “that’s always the case” and when a reporter asked “here?” he said “yes”, to which the reporter asked “are you saying that every time you play here” to which Tomlin said “I said what I said”. So it seems to me Tomlin think the Patriots were in on this but I can’t see that being true.
All and all is was a solid first game by the Patriots which resulted in a 28-21 win. There will definitely need to be some tweaking with the defense as the Patriots seemed to always be a step behind the Steelers wide receivers. The Steelers were able to connect on long passes just by a simple head fake they would throw our defender off. It is all stuff that can be worked on, but I am happy with this team. Can’t wait to see how they play Buffalo next Sunday.
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