Patriots defense opens with dominance, shuts down Steelers, 33-3

By Tom Keegan
https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/09/09/patriots-defense-opens-with-dominance-shuts-down-steelers-33-3/
September 9, 2019


((JJonathan Jones (Getty Images)

FOXBORO — As news of Red Sox general manager Dave Dombrowski’s justified firing made its way shortly after Sunday night became Monday morning to the theater where the Patriots’ postgame press conferences take place, Tom Brady stood at the podium, deftly handling questions about how to bring Antonio Brown up to speed and what it means to have Josh Gordon back from his most recent drug suspension.

Only in Boston, where championships stoke the hunger for more of them and cyberspace never stops flashing stories that pop eyes and drop jaws. It’s hard to create an audible buzz competing against so many bees.

So much is happening right now that it would be easy to overlook a same-old story, except that the story has gotten better when it didn’t seem to have much room for improvement.

The Patriots’ defense, known for starting the season slowly and rounding into shape, started in dominant fashion, demoralizing the Steelers, 33-3, in the season opener at Gillette Stadium.

Super Bowl standout Kyle Van Noy was at the hospital for the birth of his child and the Patriots didn’t need him to completely shut down a Steelers offense that misses Brown, even if his baggage isn’t missed.

“Whatever,” Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said when asked for his thoughts on his former teammate joining the Patriots.

That answer would apply to all the offseason news about one defensive assistant after another leaving the Patriots. Bill Belichick didn’t leave and neither did his brainy band of veteran tough guys on the field, so whatever.

The never-ending search for the end of the Patriots’ dynasty led some to surmise that departed de facto defensive coordinator Brian Flores, more so than his predecessors, was the one guy Belichick couldn’t afford to lose.

Flores left to become head coach of the Dolphins. He lost his debut, 59-10, to the Ravens. Afterward, several members of the Miami defense finally put on a good rush, hurrying to their phones to call their agents to put them to work on getting them traded, per a Pro Football Talk report.

So, whatever on the defensive turnover on Belichick’s staff.

Belichick’s back and so are defensive backs Stephon Gilmore and the McCourty twins, Jonathan Jones and Patrick Chung. Linebacker Dont’a Hightower was blasting ball carriers so hard I half expected a referee to step onto the field and award the Patriots a victory by TKO.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that football is like a chess match, which makes Belichick a chess master. If that were true, Steelers counterpart Mike Tomlin would have walked across the field a few minutes into the second half, extended his right hand and said, “I concede.”

NFL rules do not allow for that. There is no quitting in football. So the Steelers stuck around until the end of a two-way annihilation.

The lopsided score only hints at the utter domination. The decisions Tomlin made at the end of the Steelers’ first penetration past midfield, courtesy of James Washington beating Jason McCourty for a 45-yard reception, more accurately captured the hopelessness the Steelers faced than any numbers on the scoreboard or box score.

Trailing 20-0, the Steelers faced third-and-goal from the 1. So run the ball twice and kick the extra point, right? Wrong.

By that point, the Patriots’ defense had so demoralized the Steelers that they basically waved the white flag, conceding that even with two plays they couldn’t advance the ball one yard.

So on third down, Roethlisberger threw a dreaded fade that had no shot, and then the field-goal unit came onto the field. Talk about respect for a defense. It felt like a baseball team playing small ball in the ninth inning with a 10-run deficit, desperately trying to avoid the embarrassment of a shutout.

Think about it: After kicking the field goal, the Steelers still would have needed to score three touchdowns and pitch a shutout the rest of the way to win the game, same as if they had gone for it and come up empty. That’s how demoralized they were by the Patriots’ short-yardage defense. The field goal amounted to a concession speech from Tomlin.

A field goal, a single field goal, counts as a moral victory against this defense, which has given up three points in each of his past two games. The seven months between the Super Bowl and the season-opener didn’t interrupt the flow. The Patriots played as if they have been holding secret practices every day of the offseason.

The hopelessness the Steelers felt at third-and-goal from the 1 stemmed to thwarted first-half attempts. Danny Shelton and Devin McCourty stopped James Conner up the middle for no gain on third and 1 early in the second quarter.

After a rare three-and-out for Brady’s offense, the defense was right back on the field facing another third-and-1. This time Conner tried to get the yard by going to the outside.

Jamie Collins, playing all camp like a man making sure he’ll get to stay with the Patriots this time, shot into the backfield and with last-second help from hard-charging John Simon slammed him for a 4-yard loss, the play of the day.

The Patriots’ defenders were ready for everything. Cornerback Stephon Gilmore, the team’s best player, was at his best.

“What a great player,” Steelers top receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster said. “He played a great game. His whole team played a great game. We have to give it up them. They deserved it. They wanted it more than us and they came out to play.”

The Patriots played so well, a reflection of how they prepared during minicamp and training camp, so forgive Devin McCarty if he wasn’t in the mood to talk about his newest teammate.

“We’ve got plenty of time to talk about Antonio Brown,” said McCourty, who had an interception in the end zone. “I just feel like tonight is a big credit to the guys who have been putting in work since April. He’s a great player so we’ll see how everything works out, but I was just excited to be out there with this team with guys competing and playing well tonight.”

Extremely well. Already. Great sign. If the defense didn’t create a buzz that could be heard above the Brown din it’s not because they didn’t earn one.