The New England Patriots opened their 2024 season with a surprising 16-10 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals.

Below you can read who caught our attention when we watched them live, positively or negatively.

Winner: RB Rhamondre Stevenson. Jerod Mayo let the world know earlier this week that his team would run the ball on Sunday. They did, and Stevenson led the way, eclipsing the 100-yard mark for the fifth time in his career, with 120 rushing yards and a touchdown on 25 carries. The back appears poised for a career year in Alex Van Pelt’s offense.

Winner: DE Keion White. With Matthew Judon in Atlanta and Christian Barmore out indefinitely, it was fair to wonder where New England’s pass rush would come from. On Sunday, it was sophomore lineman Keion White, who quickly made his impact felt with a strip sack on the second defensive play of the season. In total, White finished with 2.5 sacks and three QB hits.

Loser: OT Chukwuma Okorafor. Okorafor, who started at left tackle, didn’t last long in Sunday’s game. Okorafor gave up three pressures on just five pass-blocking snaps to Trey Hendrickson, leading to him being quickly replaced by Vederian Lowe on New England’s second offensive possession. Looking ahead, Lowe appears to be the best option on the blindside.

Winner: Christian Gonzalez and the Joneses. New England’s top three corners were impressive in live action. Gonzalez drew the assignment from Ja’Marr Chase and helped limit him to just six catches for 62 yards. Chase’s biggest play of the day — a 28-yard completion — came when Gonzalez wasn’t the primary defender.

Along with Gonzalez, Marcus and Jonathan Jones were active all day. Despite no other Bengal pass catcher catching more than 26 yards, the Joneses had multiple physical tackles in front of the line to win on third and fourth down. Marcus Jones also recovered the fumble forced by Kyle Dugger.

Winner: Brenden Schooler and the Special Teams. While the new dynamic kickoff didn’t generate much excitement, New England’s special teams unit was exceptional on Sunday. That group was led by Brenden Schooler, who made a handful of tackles in punt coverage, and Joey Slye, who made all three of his field goal attempts.

Elsewhere, Joe Cardona forced a key fumble during punt coverage early in the second half and Bryce Baringer’s summer success continued into the regular season as he recorded three i20s and zero touchbacks on five punts.

Honorable mentions:

• Credit to Jacoby Brissett for managing the game script by making countless plays with his legs — though he did have one turnover-worthy play that forced an end zone pass to Hunter Henry. While it was enough on Sunday, New England will likely need more from their passing attack going forward.
• Speaking of Henry, both he and fellow tight end Austin Hooper had a pair of catches each, with three of those four resulting in first downs.
• The Patriots’ offensive line appeared to fare relatively well on live television. Brissett was sacked just once as they rushed for 170 yards on the ground — often with the help of a sixth offensive lineman. But Brissett did pick up a handful of hits throughout the game, while a free rusher in the third quarter also resulted in an incompletion downfield to an open Pop Douglas.
• Kyle Dugger made a strong play to force a fumble at the goal line that Marcus Jones recovered. Safety Jaylinn Hawkins also recovered the fumble that Cardona had forced.
• Ja’Whaun Bentley led the team with 12 total tackles and shared a sack with Keion White on a third-down blitz. Joshua Uche also had noticeable pressure along the edge to move Joe Burrow up in the pocket and straight at White for a sack.