[NFL Rookie Watch] Christian Gonzalez may have not come away with a win, but he looked SPECIAL in his debut:

29 comments

  2. I think Gonzalez looked solid especially closing strong, but he did get picked on a bunch. It was a tough matchup, and he didn’t get toasted vertically, but I didn’t get the he played amazing vibe from him.

  3. He was fantastic against AJB, but he clearly has a weakness against smaller, faster receivers such as Smith.

    As long as they keep him on whoever the biggest receiver on the other team is, he’ll be great IMO.

    The biggest positive sign in the secondary yesterday was the play of Myles Bryant. His open field tackling and closing speed looked sharp, and he looked like a completely different player.

    The defense is championship quality, the offense literally just needs to stop committing stupid turnovers and penalties and the Pats will win games.

  4. Um, not to be too negative but really? For a guy who was presented as this awesome, “steal of the draft” that they just couldn’t pass up on I was a bit underwhelmed.

    I said over the offseason a couple times that it would be hard for him to significantly improve the defense and I would’ve preferred a WR. I haven’t really seen anything that’s changed my mind on that. I think they win with Zay yesterday, but it’s still obviously way too early to figure out whether it was the right or wrong decision.

  5. When you almost never hear a cornerback’s name called by the commentators, you know they had a good day.

  6. Cornerbacks aren’t supposed to have that many tackles. He looked good, he looked bad, he looked like a promising first round rookie.

  10. He played off coverage with help most of the night. It was a great first game. . .but 7 tackles for a corner means he was targeted.

    I REALLY like his game, but it was an average game in terms of NFL CB standards. Could have been called for a hook on the 4th down pass breakup as well.

  12. Pretty solid all around but I’d like to see how he does the rest of the season instead of riding the hype train.

    He’s definitely going to have some setbacks (growing pains) as a rookie so it’ll be interesting to see how consistent he is as time goes on.

  13. He made a couple rookie mistakes, but what impressed me the most was his tackling. He hung in there, didn’t get trucked, and held his own.

    The Patriots cornerbacks last year got trucked on a regular basis because of their size, so Gonzalez is a good change of scenery.

  15. He had his ups and downs yesterday but the 4th down stuff bodes well and can carry that forward

  17. No.. no he didn’t. He was burnt several times. He’s pretty good at tackling tho. I just wish he was batting balls away and not tackling so much.

  19. Corners aren’t supposed to make 7 tackles in a game bro.

    He didn’t look awful by any means, but he got worked by AJ Brown yesterday.

  20. He was a bright spot in the “Not as bad as everyone thought they were going to be” rants yesterday.

  21. I thought he looked pretty good. Solid tackling. He did get beat a few times but against this offense I am ok with that.

  23. This isn’t really commentary on Gonzalez but I really hate Rookie Watch as a twitter account, every post has the literal same formula and it just feels cringy with no actual reporting.

  24. Guys don’t overthink this, him and carter were perhaps the best two rookies in the league yesterday…. He impacted the game significantly by negating/minimizing AJB and helping get a coverage sack too

  25. He’s so damn young too. Kid just turned 21. I think he’ll have a good year, but I think next year is when we start to see his true potential get unlocked.

  28. He had on ok game. The sack was a scheme sack, any player would of been able to get that sack.

    They showed him getting cooked multiple times. Like spun around and receiver ends up wide open type cooked.

  29. I thought he looked mostly awesome. He only had one bad drive in the fourth (was picked on a few times), but even the he negated it with that filthy breakup and the sack.

    If he and Keion White continue to build up, watch out.

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