Tight Ends Spark New England Patriots Victory Over Cincinnati

Tight Ends Spark New England Patriots Victory Over Cincinnati

The New England Patriots edged out the Cincinnati Bengals, the last undefeated team in the NFL at the Gillette Stadium last Sunday.

The 43-17 win of New England came behind the efforts of Tim Wright and Rob Gronkowski, who combined for 11 out of the 23 completions of Tom Brady. The 11 completions resulted to 185 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

The two-tight end formation of New England came as the Gronkowski played his best game for the season. The tight end is trying to get his game back following a number of injuries that affected his 2013 season.

Brady revealed that Gronkowski made a number of great runs and catches. Brady also hit a personal best of 50,000 career passing yards. The impressive performance of Gronkowski came after he was able to participate in all practices for the week.

A similar thing happened to Wright, who had only a single catch in the last six games. Wright had five catches for a total of 85 yards and a score. The strategy of Bill Belchick for the New England Patriots proved to be effective as its receiving unit initially appeared to be unreliable and depleted. However, Belchick gave credit to Brady, who had the option where to pass the ball.

Even as the Bengals were allowing only 11 points per game in Week 5, Brady passed nearly half of his throws to the tight ends. The offense of the Patriots was similar to its strategy in 2011 prior to the set of injuries suffered by Gronkowski. For the moment, it remains uncertain if the team will continue with the strategy as its two-tight end formation is now among the most potent matchup problems in the league.

With the size of Gronkowski and Wright, the Patriots have a very strong tight-end formation. In the end, Belchick will decide whether to continue with its current offensive strategy or the New England Patriots will try to work out a different formation in its future games.

Posted by Andre Monohan on Tuesday October 07 2014, 5:27 AM EDT. Ref: USA Today. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0