NFL: Patriots rave about WR Danny Amendola debut performance

New England Patriots WR Danny Amendola all offseason listened to the’what are we going to do without Wes Welker’ talk. When Amendola tweaked his groin, the moans and groans began, ‘here we go.’

However, when Tom Brady needed his go to guy, Amendola came up big. He had 104 yards on 10 catches. Nine of them good for first downs. Seven of those nine on third-down receptions.

His final catch, a 10-yard pass snared on third-and-8 from the Bills 39, a reception that was the key for the Patriots to escape with a 23-21 win against Buffalo.On Sunday, at least for one week, Amendola detractors got a taste of humble pie and Patriots players said as much.

“He gets a little dinged up and it turns into a big deal,” RB LeGarrette Blount said, via Tom Curran of CSNNE.com.

“And how many yards did he have receiving?”

“Talk all this trash about him and he comes out here and performs exactly how they want him to,” added Blount. “Now people that were talking about him are gonna change their mind.”

“He gave it all he had and that is all you can ask,” QB Tom Brady said.

“I thought he was going to be out for the rest of the game [after leaving with the groin injury]. He showed a lot of toughness, mental and physical and he made some really great plays for us.”

“Tough dude,” said Matt Slater. “My hat’s off to him. I have a lot of respect for him, I already did coming into today but he fought through it when we needed him. This was a win that didn’t come easy for us and we needed guys to step up and he did that for us. You need teammates like that who can step up when times get tough and he did that.”

“It’s always good to see someone shut people up. I love when guys go out and prove people wrong. Don’t judge until you know,” Blount said.