Getty New England Patriots Linebacker Matthew Judon
The New England Patriots picked up another win in Week 9 and Matthew Judon had an outstanding performance.
Judon has been the heartbeat of New England’s defense. He is far and away the Patriots’ best player on the unit and possibly the entire team.
Prior to Week 9, Judon had 28 tackles and 8.5 sacks per Pro Football Reference. The pass rusher had another great performance racking up three sacks and becoming the first player in the NFL this season to record double-digit sacks (11.5).
“The grace of God, for real,” Judon said when asked about his performance. “My teammates go out there, put me in great situations to execute. My coaches call good calls. I’m just willing to do whatever I need to do for our defense to have success. Whatever that is, however it looks and however I need to play, I’m willing to do it. Today it was just one of those games.”
What Did the Colts Have to Say About Matthew Judon?
With how well Judon has played, the Indianapolis Colts had to have been game-planning for the pass rusher but still were unable to stop him.
Colts head coach Frank Reich was impressed by Judon’s performance.
“Yeah, he’s a really good player,” Reich said. “We had a lot of focus on him. We were trying to put the back to his side but they were running games with him. They beat us on some games. You know, they executed some games pretty well that we didn’t execute on. He’s a great player. Obviously, he leads the NFL in sacks. We knew that coming in. We had to try to get him a lot of attention coming in, chip him and slide to him when we could. But, obviously, we didn’t do a good enough job.”
How Did Matthew Judon’s Teammates Feel About his Performance?
As fans might expect, Judon was all the talk after the win and his teammates appreciated just how well he performed.
“We talked about getting off to an early start and when you are playing a young quarterback if you can make it tough like we did today, even the second sack that [Matthew Judon] got that ended up getting called back for roughing the passer, just that pressure that he felt that early in the game to get to the quarterback two or three times in the first six to nine plays, that’s tough to come into the game with,” Devin McCourty said. “Those guys did a great job and just trying to be opportunistic and doing a good job in coverage on the back end.
“You don’t get many games like this where they are able to get after the quarterback so fast,” he added. “We just have got to continue to build. It is not going to get easier at this point in the season. We have got to still play better, it is what it is. Especially the week after next, going back into the division with the Jets. We have got to stay on top of it, enjoy this win, rest up, be ready to go and after the bye it will be a long haul of trying to play our best football.”