Greg Bedard: 3 Up and 3 Down for the Patriots in week 2
Greg Bedard of BostonSportsJournal.com joined Felger and Mazz on Tuesday! Bedard gave his Three up and Three down for the New England Patriots following their 24-17 loss to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday night!
3 Up 3 Down Trascript:
Felger: Three up, three down. Three studs, three duds. Who’s your number one star from the game?
Greg Bedard: Matthew Judon. Five impactful plays. The only guy on defense who, you know, made plays consistently. Big shock.
Felger: Anthony you want to weigh in?
Mazz: Oh, sorry. I thought he was going to give all three. I actually went Christian Gonzalez. I thought it was the second good game in a row for him. And I know they played a lot of zone. There was a lot of safety help, but he made one of the bigger plays of the game on defense. I don’t know if the Patriots had, what I would call a true number one star in this game, but I’ll go with Gonzalez.
Felger: Number two.
Greg Bedard: Mac Jones. He was good in this game. You just wish he had better blocking and more weapons to work with. And you know you put him on the Dolphins, I think the Dolphins are 2-0 and they’re doing a lot of the same things on offense. I mean, you just look at this game, they both played similar in terms of the plays they made, the plays they didn’t make, the turnover, Tua’s an MVP candidate. Mac Jones, some people, I think it’s more of a minority this week, want to question the quarterback.
Mazz: Mac Jones. I also had him number two. He wasn’t the problem in this game.
Felger: Okay third one might be tough.
Greg Bedard: Yeah it is tough, but I’m going to go with Gonzalez for the interception. And granted, you know, I think it was more akin to catching a punt and, you know, good job by him catching the ball. I don’t think his technique was good on the play. He flipped his hips. If Tua makes a better throw on a line that’s probably a touchdown. But he just decided to throw a ball up for grabs and good job by Gonzales. And I do think he gave up a play, but overall, his coverage is really good. I mean, he is not lost covering the likes of Tyreek Hill. Now, he didn’t have to do it a lot in this game, but I am certainly encouraged by what I’ve seen in the first two weeks.
Mazz: I went Mike Gesicki. I thought he was a factor in this game. He had what, five catches on six targets or five targets? He was pretty good.
Greg Bedard: Bill was a big fan postgame.
Felger: I was gonna say Hunter Henry.
Mazz: Yeah, he was good too.
Felger: One of those two guys.
Mazz: Yeah.
Felger: That’s their offense.
Mazz: I mean between the two of them they had what, ten catches those two guys? And I half expect it out of Henry now, but Gesicki factored into that game the other night.
Sept. 17, 2023; Foxborough, MA: New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones signals to a receiver during the second half against the Miami Dolphins at Gillette Stadium. (Paul Rutherford-USA TODAY Sports)
Felger: Three down. Who’s the number one dud?
Greg Bedard: Calvin Anderson. He was horrible in this game I mean he got worked by Van Ginkel who the week before the Dolphins had actually made him move on from edge, because he used to be a 3-4 outside linebacker, then they changed schemes under Fangio and he was a linebacker last week. They moved him to edge this week and he looked like an all pro next to Calvin Anderson.
Mazz: I couldn’t separate Calvin Anderson from Vederian Lowe, so I put them both.
Greg Bedard: Hang on, hang on. Vederian Lowe was pretty good in this game. Other than the sack, the sack was problematic, but if he didn’t give up that sack late he might have been the team’s best offensive lineman in this game.
Mazz: I thought they both sucked.
Greg Bedard: You would be wrong. As usual.
Mazz: Their tackle play in this game was horrendous. Horrendous.
Felger: Number two down.
Greg Bedard: Mike Onwenu. You know, just because it was more of a play percentage thing, because he only played 48 snaps. But you know he wasn’t great in this game. I mean Coach Strange, it probably would have been him if they played the same number of snaps, but because Cole played 74 snaps it was a little bit of a difference there. But they were close.
Mazz: Sounds like the whole offensive line sacked other than David Andrews, if you ask me.
Greg Bedard: And he wasn’t great. For him he wasn’t great. There were so many Patriots offensive linemen on the ground during this game. I’ve never seen that before. They were just getting their asses whooped up front.
Felger: Mazz, number two?
Mazz: Josh Uche. I thought he sucked in this game. I thought Miami ran at him early. They had a lot of success on the offensive left and I think Uche played only about half the snaps because I think the Patriots quickly came to the realization they couldn’t have him out there.
Felger: Who’s the number three dud?
Greg Bedard: So Godchaux, Ekuale, and whoever decided to do this alignment with Daniel Ekuale playing nose tackle and “oh, we’re going to be really smart. We’re going to move Godchaux over to end”. Yeah, well, the Dolphins just ran away from that and just shoved Ekuale all over the place. Like Godchaux supposedly is one of the best nose tackles in the league, you know, how about you have him play nose tackle and not get your ass whipped up front?
Mazz: Godchaux. I had him third. I did, I had him third. I thought he was lousy in this game. Greg’s telling me that, what’s the guy’s name again?
Greg Bedard: Daniel Ekuale.
Mazz: I just can’t pronounce it. Ekuale was bad, too. I’m telling you that from the middle of the line to the offensive left in Miami, I thought they got hammered.
Greg Bedard: I almost had Kyle Dugger as one of the downs. I mean, he gave up two touchdowns. Look the Mostert touchdown wasn’t exclusively his fault. Ekuale, Bentley, Peppers was bad on it, but that’s the Devin McCourty position. Come up and make the tackle or at least slow the guy up so it’s not a touchdown. And then he gave up the touchdown to Hill. The Dolphins read the Patriots like a book there. If you’re Duggar at least like tackle Tyreek Hill. Like don’t let him just do whatever he wants.
