New England Patriots: Studs and duds vs. Browns in Week 8
Stud: Sony Michel
Sony Michel has continued to be a dominant force on the ground for New England in the past few weeks while leading the New England running back corps in terms of being the primary ball carrier within the offense.
On Sunday against Cleveland and Gillette Stadium, Michel led all Patriots rushers with a total of 74 yards on 21 overall carries. The running back, although he was held out of the endzone in the contest, finished with a game-long rush of 16 yards in the win. Overall, Michel produced 74 of the overall 79 rushing yards the Patriots were able to finish the game with while being responsible for 21 of the team’s 27 carries on the ground.
It’s definitely a positive sign to see Michel doing work on the ground and have success for New England in the running game, especially to offer the offense some balance to combat the powerful passing attack.
Dud: Brady still not totally back to being himself
The final dud that took place for the New England Patriots on Sunday evening at home against Cleveland, although was a very small “negative” in the grand scheme of things, was Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
For the most part, Brady had a good game and did what he needed to in order to help lead his team to their eighth straight win to start the year. But Brady isn’t completely back to being the stellar self that we saw out of the future Hall-of-Famer to kick off the 2019 campaign.
On Sunday against Cleveland, Brady led the New England offense by throwing for 259 yards through the air with two touchdowns. He converted on 20 of his overall 36 pass attempts, which isn’t necessarily all that great, but as I said, was enough to help the Patriots come away with the win at home.
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Brady will bounce back and continue to do what needs to be done in order to ultimately get the most important thing out of a game, that being the win. But it is a little odd that in the last few weeks we haven’t really seen him return back to the type of dominance we saw out of him earlier on in the season.