There was something extremely telling about Brandon Meriweather's game-saving tackle and strip of Leodis McKelvin on Monday night.
Yes, Meriweather delivered a pop — something he's been doing since his days at the U — but it was what he did after the initial hit that showed the type of maturity that you'd expect out of a Bill Belichick-coached player in his third year.
Meriweather, after really laying a lick on the ball carrier, stood a few feet away from McKelvin at the 25-yard line. With red jerseys and Pat Patriots to every side of him, Meriweather did not have to make the tackle. A rookie may have let his teammates drag the ball carrier to the ground, instead opting to stomp/sway/swagger in open space.
Meriweather, of course, took a different route, latching onto McKelvin and tenaciously going after the football. (Shades of Tedy Bruschi on Dominic Rhodes? OK, maybe not yet.)
The 25-year-old did just enough to jar the ball out of McKelvin's hands, and Pierre Woods, showing some maturity himself, laid another hit on McKelvin, and the rest was history.
"That’s a situation where at the end of the game when you’re behind you’re always looking to pull the ball out," Belichick said after the game. "It was a heads up play."
True to Patriots form, Meriweather was quick to share the credit after the game.
“It was a great team effort," Meriweather said. "The kickoff team, we’ve been expecting turnovers all camp. It just came to a point where I got a solid lick and the rest of the team did the rest of the job.”
The game-changing fumble is not the first time Meriweather's made his mark in a Patriots win. In Week 14 of last season, with the Patriots facing a must-win in Seattle, Meriweather slipped through the Seahawks' offensive line to strip quarterback Seneca Wallace and secure a 24-21 win.
Playing a major part in two victories in five games is the type of progression you'd hope for out of a top draft pick, but you'd never go as far as to expect it. So on a night when the defense didn't look sharp as a whole, credit the starting safety for once again proving the importance of special teams.
