“We were trying to catch up and win the game,” Eagles coach Andy Reid said, when asked why LeSean McCoy was still in the game with under two minutes to go in a 34-6 blowout loss to the Washington Redskins.
“Football players play football” says Bill Belichick, commenting on the broken forearm that Rob Gronkowski suffered on special teams with 59 seconds left to go in a 59-24 win over the Colts. “You tell me which guys are going to get hurt and I’ll get them out of there.”
If there are a million ways to lose in a football game, the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots re-discovered one in Week 11. Two extremely important pieces to each team’s offenses went down this week, late in meaningless parts of the game.s
Reid’s remarks may come off as smug to some, but the loss of LeSean McCoy has surely humbled him, if not other coaches around the League. McCoy, who is still being tested for the severity of his concussion (he looked pretty “out of there” when the video was shown of him on the sidelines, similar to the look Michael Vick had before it was revealed that his concussion would rule him out for an indefinite amount of time), is now part of a long list of disappointments by the 2012 Eagles, a team streaking for a top three pick in the upcoming draft who will surely see new faces all across the board next season.
As redundant as the loss of LeSean McCoy may seem in a season that had been lost weeks ago, the real story is the loss of Rob Gronkowski for the 7-3 Patriots, who have the AFC East in a chokehold once again and will likely make the playoffs regardless of the loss of Gronk. After all, the next best team in the division is 4-6 and only the Patriots, of the four teams, have a winning record in divisional play.
Robert Gronkowski is literally a freak of nature, a LeBron James of the NFL. At six-foot-seven, 275 pounds, Gronk is the most dangerous weapon in the NFL right now, and has limitless potential that is on track to send him galaxies past even the greatest tight ends, eclipsing the Kellen Winslows, the Tony Gonzalezes, the Shannon Sharpes with ease.
Don’t believe me? ESPN recently posted an article highlighting the sheer value of Rob Gronkowski.
– Gronkowski’s two touchdown on Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts gave him 37 for his career, the third-most by any player in his first three seasons in NFL history. Only Randy Moss (43) and Jerry Rice (40) had more.
Gronkowski’s scores on Sunday extended his current streak of consecutive games with a touchdown to four.
– Grownkowski is the first tight end in NFL history to have at least 10 touchdown receptions in each of his first three NFL seasons.
– Gronkowski is one of three players in Patriots history to have three consecutive seasons with at least 10 touchdowns scored. The other two are Corey Dillon (2004 to 2006) and Randy Moss (2007 to 2009).
– Tom Brady was 7-for-7 for 137 yards and two touchdowns when targeting Gronkowski in Sunday’s rout.
– Gronkowski caught his only end-zone target Sunday, his fourth straight game with a touchdown on a pass into the end zone.
– Brady is 5-for-7 targeting Gronkowski in the end zone in his last four games after starting the season 2-for-6 on those throws in New England’s first six games.
On top of that, since last season, Gronkowski has been targeted in the end zone 29 times (ranks fourth in the NFL), caught 19 passes (ranks first in the NFL), dropped only one pass (tied for twelfth in the NFL), and dropped no passes (tied for first in the NFL). And this is without mentioning the numerous tight end and NFL records he holds at only 23 years old.
He is simply invaluable.
So invaluable, I’m guessing, that the Patriots decide game after game to keep him on the field goal unit on the last score of a merciless blowout victory over the Colts. Now while it is well-known that Belichick expects his players to play a full sixty-minutes, even in blowout victories or rare losses, and though it is not uncommon to see first-stringers on special teams, one thing will always remain unquestioned: winning masks everything, and although the Patriots won the game, the loss brings about a lot of questions and doubts about keeping Gronkowski in the game that late.
As a matter of fact, is there any reason why it has to be Gronkowski on special teams? The Patriots, more than anyone, have depth at tight end, packing four or five tight ends on their roster, and that may still be true if you do not include either Gronk or Aaron Hernandez. Gronk hasn’t necessarily been a force on special teams like Kellen Winslow (or LeBron James), so I would assume he hasn’t done much of anything on special teams besides stand there and be viable for injury.
As an Eagles fan, I had no idea why LeSean McCoy had been running the ball that late in the game, especially when backup Bryce Brown seemed to be carrying the majority of the load from beginning of the game anyway, especially in the second half. And I’m sure Patriots fans aren’t very pleased with the dark humor of Week 11, if that’s what you want to call it.
Gronkowski, having surgery today, is slated to miss four to six weeks, and luckily for the Patriots, he should be back in time for the playoffs. The Patriots, provided the path to the postseason is as easy as we expect it to be for them, may have dodged a bullet with the incredible timing of the injury, but if Super Bowl XLVI didn’t let them know before, they will soon find out that there is only one Rob Gronkowski, and the last thing you want is for him to be injured. And while everyone knows his value, it would be a sad story if the Patriots found out the importance of their tight end only after he’s on the sidelines.
Field Notes 