FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- For those who crave a deeper understanding of football X’s and O’s, Bill Belichick’s weekly breakdown of plays (on Patriots.com) can be a good place to start. In this week’s breakdown, one of the things that stands out is Belichick highlighting an aspect of tight end Rob Gronkowski's game that might be easy to overlook.

Belichick called up Gronkowski’s 37-yard catch from Sunday’s win over the Pittsburgh Steelers -- with safety Robert Golden matched up on Gronkowski in the left slot -- to make his point.

“This really is a good look at Rob’s route-running ability. Rob comes in on Golden and takes it down the middle like he’s going to run a crossing pattern or over route and gives him a good move here and bends it back out. The receivers clear out the corners. That’s a lot of space there,” Belichick said, before pointing out how that route was set up by what preceded it in the game.

“The number of times we’ve run Rob on over routes, and to come back and counter it; it looks like Golden is trying to guess on the route and undercut it a little bit. Rob comes back away from it and turns it into a big play and sets up our last touchdown. Really a well-executed play by Rob.

“Sometimes you think it’s all size and strength, but as a technique route runner, he’s very good, too.”

Belichick picked out a handful of other plays in his breakdown:

1. Tom Brady's excellence in reading a defense. On Gronkowski’s 36-yard touchdown catch in the third quarter, Belichick pinpointed Brady’s read of the coverage.

“Real good play by Tom here. Tough read here, it almost looks like they’re doubling Gronkowski, which you would expect them to do,” Belichick said, also noting double coverage on the right side on receiver Chris Hogan.

“But the safety ends up pushing outside to Danny [Amendola] and that leaves single coverage on Rob. Good throw, good catch, excellent job here of reading the coverage. It looks like it’s going to be double coverage on Gronkowski, but Tom is able to see [Sean] Davis turning outside and getting the matchup on Golden down the middle.”

Then Belichick took a moment in his breakdown to admire Gronkowski’s spike.

“Love to see that,” he said with a smile.

2. Thuney and Andrews lead way on screen. Interior offensive line play can be a challenge to evaluate in real time, but running back James White's 19-yard screen pass for a touchdown in the first quarter was easy to see the fine work by left guard Joe Thuney and center David Andrews.

Belichick said the Patriots had been working hard on the screen to get it timed up right, and it showed in the game.

“Joe Thuney really gets it going. It’s man-to-man coverage, Thuney comes out and gets the cover linebackers -- the linebacker that’s responsible for covering the running back,” Belichick said, before pointing out Andrews’ hustle to make a block inside the 10.

“We try to get these screens, we call [it] down the sidewalk, down the numbers, or down the inside edge of the numbers depending on where the ball is located on the field. ... It’s a well-executed screen pass that really came at the right time for us. Our linemen, Joe and David, did a great job downfield.”

3. Passing receivers off in zone coverage. Nothing fancy about it, but Belichick liked the improvement on third down defensively and showed an example of good zone coverage (third-and-4, third quarter, 9:20) with defenders passing receivers off to the next zone to force an incompletion. Belichick also showed a red-zone stop that featured strong man coverage to force an incompletion. Third down and red zone -- two critical areas.

4. Blocking sets up Blount’s big run. LeGarrette Blount;s 25-yard run in the third quarter was one of the big plays of the game, helping to settle down the offense after the Steelers had closed to 14-13. Belichick showed that Gronkowski had a strong block on the edge, receiver Julian Edelman did his part downfield, and the linemen up front – particularly left tackle Nate Solder and Thuney – had an effective double team before Thuney released to pick up a linebacker coming downhill.

“That’s a hole even you and I could make yards through,” Belichick joked with his sidekick, Scott Zolak. “Well, you anyway.”

Belichick also liked how Blount finished the run, not going out of bounds.