Patriots' Gonzalez earning his keep

Gonzo's has done a great job every week," said Patriots assistant Jerod Mayo when I asked him about Gonzalez earlier this week. "We challenge them with some of these things, whether it's the go-to guy or against someone else with no help. He's a very good corner."

Mayo also reminded us the kid still has a long way to go. That should be scary for the rest of the league. The rookie's cover skills have already created advantages for the Pats defense. For starters, having Gonzalez be able to travel with receivers and have that trust gives them numbers elsewhere in the secondary. Yes, Jon Jones did some of this last year, but there were obvious size mismatches that even the uber-competitive Jones couldn't overcome. Gonzalez has already gone toe-to-toe with three different body types of top receivers (I'd put Wilson and Smith in a similar category) and has more than held his own. I wondered if that had surprised Patriots defensive play-caller Steven Belichick.

"I don't know if I would say surprise," said Belichick. "Just because we did a lot of work on him coming out of college. So, you could see a lot of these traits when you watched all the college tape and stuff like that, so I wouldn't say surprise. But he's been playing really well so far, which is the expectation of all players around here. But I'm I'm definitely happy we have him. That's why we drafted him and everybody else, so I'm happy that he's doing well. I hope it can continue."

When asked if anything about the league had surprised him, Gonzalez had to think briefly.

"Umm, the weeks do move by real fast," he said in his soft tone (he really does remind me of Stephon Gilmore in that regard.) "They fly by. But I'm kind of having a lot of fun doing it, though."

Gonzalez had played all but one of the defensive snaps this year and has 16 tackles, one sack, one interception, and three PBUs. Opposing quarterbacks are completing less than 60% of their passes when targeting him.

Gonzalez has answered some of those questions about his physicality, too. He's not Jabril Peppers out there, but he's holding his own in run force, and as a tackler, and quite frankly, that's all you can ask. Once they have him in the building for an entire year and he adds to that 195-pound frame, it should only help his ability to navigate the bigger bodies that attack him on the edge. Likewise, it will give him more play strength and leverage in coverage—the proverbial win-win.

"I just gotta keep my head down and just keep working and just keep going," he said. "Trying to come in each week and try to do what I do, and listen to the coaches and take to the film study and put it out on the field."