It was not pretty in any sense of the word as the New England Patriots dropped their first game of the season to the Baltimore Ravens 37-20.
The Ravens crushed the Patriots with a solid run game with constantly shifting tail backs and their pistol formation.
Sloppy play in many places, great play in others. Here are the winners and losers of tonight’s matchup.
Winner: Mohamed Sanu Sr.
Contrary to Antonio Brown, this one just might work.
Through the first half alone, the Rutgers alum and former Atlanta Falcon had four receptions and a score averaging seven yards a catch.
By the end of the game, Sanu amassed 10 catches for 81 yards and a score.
Belichick also trust his receiver of only 10 days to return punts in the place of the injured Gunner Olszewski.
Sanu is in line for a huge role.
Loser: Offensive line
The offensive line has been talked about in nauseam in this series and it the scrutiny will keep on coming.
Marshall Newhouse is playing horrible football at left tackle. Shaq Mason and Marcus Cannon have regressed ten-fold right in front of everyone’s eyes leaving quarterback Tom Brady to run for his life.
The return of Isaiah Wynn cannot come soon enough.
Loser: Devin McCourty
McCourty had a game to forget as he found himself on the flip side of poor positioning on the field.
On running plays, McCourty had difficult times squaring up to the tailbacks and closing field position to make the tackle.
The defensive backs were given the daunting task of spying Lamar Jackson and were very iffy in doing that.
It was the little things today that put McCourty on the list.
Winner: Justin Bethel
What a pickup Justin Bethel has been for the Patriots.
Arguably the best special teams player in the game today along with Matthew Slater, made Cyrus Jones’ day miserable coming up with a fumble to put the Patriots back in the game with a much needed break.
The third phase of the game kept the Patriots in it relatively and Bethel is one of the most valuable players.
Loser: Lawrence Guy
Lamar Jackson exploited the slowest defensive player on the field for the Patriots.
One play most notably was when Guy bit hard on the run-pass option following Mark Ingram instead of Jackson as he took it for a huge gain.
Guy is going to want to forget about this one.
Winner: Kyle Van Noy
The awareness of Van Noy to knock the ball out of Ingram’s hands that late into a play showed how great of a player he is.
The play not only set up the Patriots with good field position, but allowed the Patriots to close the gap even more after starting out down by 17.
There is a reason why Van Noy and the linebackers have been the center of attention for the defense.
