Pats Win / Moss Vents / Mankins Irate

Monday, September 13, 2010

Scott Cordischi, GoLocalProv Sports Editor

Take a deep breath, New England. Now exhale. Okay, it’s over. The 2010 season-opener was a resounding success for your New England Patriots. Offense, defense, special teams, they did it all well for the most part. But let’s not put this team in Dallas for Super Bowl XLV just yet. For as much as we want to celebrate that our Pats looked like the Pats of old, it’s far too premature to draw any conclusions just yet.

Still, what was not to like? The much-maligned Patriots defense stuffed Cincinnati on its opening drive giving the ball to Tom Brady and the offense who executed a perfect opening drive which resulted in a Wes Welker touchdown catch. Welker had a pair of touchdown catches to lead a balanced attack for New England. Randy Moss (5-59 yds)and Kevin Faulk (23 yds rushing, 47 yds receiving)made their usual contributions in the passing game while rookie TE Aaron Hernandez had an up and down day making a 45-yard catch and run on the game’s opening drive. He also dropped a touchdown catch later in the first half.

On the ground, the overall numbers were good. But, with the Patriots up 31-10 in the third, New England tried to run the ball to protect their lead and take some time off of the clock. They were unsuccessful at doing both which has to be a bit of a concern moving forward. All in all, however, Fred taylor continued his tough running picking up 71 yards on 14 carries for an average of 5.1 yards per carry.

Special teams were very good. The kick coverage was solid all day and Brandon Tate’s 97-yard kickoff return for a TD to start the second half essentially put the game away.

For the defense, it was a tale of two halves. The first half saw Belichick’s younger and faster defense play terrific football holding the Bengals to just 3 points in the opening two quarters. They even forced turnovers much like some of the veteran Patriots defensive units of the not-so-distant past. But the second half was far different. Carson Palmer (34-50 345 yds 2 TD 1 INT) and the Bengals offense started to exploit the inexperienced secondary. Rookie TE Jermaine Gresham caught a 1-yd touchdown pass early in the third. Later in the quarter Chad Ochocinco hauled in a 28-yard TD catch making it 31-17 Patriots.
The Patriots would eventually hold on and, most importantly, improve to 1-0 on the early season. In the end, there were many more good things that came out of the game for New England but, as Bill Belichick would say, “it wasn’t perfect.”

Now that we’ve wet our whistle with the appetizer that was New England-Cincinnati, we can look forward to the main course which will be Patriots-Jets next week at the Meadowlands. It’s a division game, on the road against the #1 defense in the NFL from a year ago. We should learn a lot more about this team after week 2.

Pats Notes:

Moss Vents – You would think that after an impressive season-opening win over a playoff team from a year ago that it would be a very festive mood in the Patriots locker room after the game. Think again.
Randy Moss took the podium after the game and proceeded to vent about not having a new contract extension proclaiming that, “from a business standpoint, this will be my last year with the Patriots.”
He said quite a bit more but you get the gist of it from that one comment. Today Moss will be crucified by many in the Boston media and Patriots fans alike. I say, what’s the big deal?

Let’s not forget that this is a business for these guys. With that said, they all handle these contract situations differently. Tom Brady chooses not to discuss his contract publicly and simply shows up to play to honor whatever contract he currently has. Logan Mankins chooses to not honor his contract and instead hold out on principal. He, too, has taken some verbal shots at the Patriots organization throughout his contract stalemate.

And then there’s Moss. He chose to speak about it a week ago saying that he felt unwanted. And he chose to speak about it again on Sunday after the game.

Patriots network postgame host Gary Tanguay crucified Moss for his statements and, in my opinion, wrongfully so.

There’s no question that Moss can be criticized for the timing of his contract venting. That is a fair criticism. But that is where it should end. This man has been a model citizen since arriving here in New England and, despite what may have happened elsewhere, he deserves the benefit of the doubt from the media and fans that follow this team.

If Moss pulls a Manny Ramirez and commits what I like to call “crimes against the team,” the all bets are off and let the criticism begin. If he dogs it, quits on the team or starts taking plays or practices off for no good reason, by all means he should be hammered. But unless or until he does that, he should be allowed to vent about his contract –period!

Mankins Irate – A published report claims that the Pats and All-Pro guard Logan Mankins had a deal all but done a couple of weeks ago which fell apart at the very end. Apparently the deal was contingent upon Mankins apologizing to Pats owner Bob Kraft for questioning his integrity in comments made back in June. That apology was made and both Mankins and Kraft seemed happy to bury the hatchet. But then someone in the organization (this has Jonathan Kraft’s fingerprints all over it) told Mankins that he also needed to issue a public apology before the contract could be consummated. That didn’t sit well with Mankins who now seems resolute about not wanting to play for the Patriots ever again.

If the details of this story are accurate, shame on whoever it was in the organization who demanded that Mankins issue a public apology. First, it is understood that in heated contract disputes, inflammatory remarks can be made. Second, his apology to Bob Kraft should have been more than sufficient to put this issue to bed once and for all. I don’t blame Mankins for being mad. The Patriots pushed the envelope too far in this particular case.

Rookie TE’s – What a day it was for the three rookie TE’s in Foxboro Sunday. Cincinnati’s Cecil Gresham caught his first career touchdown pass in the third quarter while the Patriots Rob Gronkowski countered with his first career TD in the fourth. Aaron Hernandez also played well for New England.

Everybody Wang Chung Tonight! – Second year safety Patrick Chung was all over the place making plays for the Patriots defense. Chung led the team in tackles and made some good, hard hits on Cincinnati players.

Big Vince! – Patriots NT Vince Wilfork did a great job clogging up the middle all day for the Patriots defense. He also got some great push on passing downs and was credited with a pass defended and a quarterback hit.

Thanks, T.O. – Chad Ochocinco has to be thrilled to have another great WR opposite him on the field in the person of Terrell Owens. Ochocinco had a big day for the Bengals offense (159 yds 1 TD) after Carson Palmer looked for T.O. early in the contest. Without the likes of T.J. Houshmanzadeh and Chris Henry, things were starting to get a bit more difficult for Ochocinco but that may change in 2010.