No Brady. No Gronk. On the road. With Jimmy Garoppolo as QB, a guy who never had an NFL start. Against Super Bowl contenders. No chance for New England right? Well, not really. Belichick does it again.
Arizona Cardinals were the heavy favorites going into this Sunday Night Football game as the Patriots did not have their two best players on the field and everyone expected Arizona to cruise past depleted Patriots squad, but that just wasn’t the case.
The first-time starter Jimmy Garoppolo had a tough task ahead of him. The first start, on the road against Super Bowl contenders. And he rose to the occasion, went 24/33 for 264 yards and 1 TD and no picks. He did fumble the ball one time, but that was just one flaw in pretty great performance for the Patriots’ backup Quarterback. He was able to get rid of the ball very quickly; more importantly, he was on target and on point for most of the game. Furthermore, Garoppolo also showed the ability to run with the ball in cases where he didn’t have anyone to pass to.
Cardinals haven’t played a good game, but at the end, they had the chance to steal the game with a 47-yard FG. That didn’t happen as their punter had a lot of trouble catching that snapped ball and that caused their kicker to miss a field goal and hand in the victory to New England Patriots.
It was not all Jimmy for the visitors. Their receivers played very well, they were open and made huge plays. Garoppolo’s job was much easier with receivers in the game. But that defense tho. Rarely beaten, not many mistakes, allowed couple of big plays, bent but didn’t break.
image source: youtube.comOf course, Tom Brady will get his job back when he returns after he serves his 4-game suspension from the deflate-gate, but it’s good to know that Garoppolo is ready if something ever happens to Patriots’ legend. Take a bow Bill. Take a bow Jimmy.
