Aaron Hernandez showed signs of life in his first game back from an ankle injury.
By the time the second quarter – and a bizarre 52-second span that included three New England touchdowns – was over Thursday night, most people watching the Patriots' blowout win over the New York Jets had likely stopped thinking about the absence of tight end Rob Gronkowski.
That is, of course, unless they said something along the lines of, “The Pats won 49-19? Imagine how bad it would have been if Gronk was in there.”
The general takeaway may be that New England has enough weapons to get by without much dropoff while Gronkowski heals from a broken left forearm suffered Sunday against the Colts. And that could turn out to be true, but it may not be completely fair.
Those who allowed Gronkowski to enter their minds later in the blowout were right: The margin likely would have been much larger if he played the 50 or so snaps for which Daniel Fells was on the field. But the Patriots offense still hummed at a high level after a slow start, and it looks like Aaron Hernandez is close to being fully healthy after suffering an ankle injury in Week 2.
Hernandez finished with just two catches for 36 yards, but he showed there’s little reason to worry by making multiple cuts on a 28-yard catch-and-run. Patriots coach Bill Belichick was enthused by the play and believes Hernandez should be able to build on the effort.
“I think it’s tough for a player who has been out for a few weeks to come right back in at the same level that he would be if he were playing all those consecutive weeks and practicing,” Belichick said. “But I think Aaron did some good things, and we hope that in the next game that he plays, he’ll be able to build on last night and take it to high ground.”
Hernandez played all but a dozen of the offense's 68 snaps, the Patriots using two tight ends on a majority of those plays. When Hernandez was out, the offense favored three-receiver sets.
The shift in philosophy makes sense since Hernandez often splits out wide as a receiver. Fells, meanwhile, is more of a blocker and has the ability to fill that aspect of Gronkowski’s role. Though it looked like Fells was sliding off the depth chart after a healthy scratch against the Colts, the man who temporary leap-frogged him – Visanthe Shiancoe – is more of a receiver, which could make it hard for him to find snaps moving forward.
“We’ve got a lot of tight ends, certainly, that are capable of doing different things,” offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said. “The way we felt best about playing them (Thursday) night, we had two of them on the field predominantly most of the game. And I thought those guys gave us some production and really allowed us to play the game we wanted to play.”
It may not be smooth sailing without Gronkowski the next 4-6 weeks, but Thursday night provided a good starting point.