The Buffalo Bills did very little to slow down Rob Gronkowski in their first meeting with the New England Patriots this season. Gronk had one of his best games of the year, catching seven passes for 113 yards and a score in his team’s 40-32 victory.
Bills cornerback Stephon Gilmore is confident things will be different Monday night.
“We got a game plan to take him out of the game,” Gilmore told reporters earlier this week, via Mike Rodak of ESPN.com. “We’re gonna be ready for him.”
Teams will likely focus even more on Gronkowski now that Edelman is out, but they can’t just ignore the man many expect to be Edelman’s replacement. Danny Amendola, who has developed good chemistry with Tom Brady over the past year, is more than capable of making an impact.
Brady torched Buffalo in Week 2, but Gilmore insists the Bills learned a lot from watching last weekend’s Patriots-Giants game.
“They [were] getting to him,” he said of the Giants. “They [were] getting to Tom Brady, getting him off his spot. They [were] sacking him and they are playing tight coverage on the back end. So first all of you have to get to him to make him mess up.”
That is always easier said than done. Brady plays some of his best football at home and in primetime, so this is an incredibly tough spot for Buffalo. The most surprising thing here is that Gilmore didn’t learn from the comments he made before the Week 2 game. You don’t want to give an ape like Gronk any added motivation.
