New England Patriots crush Buffalo Bills, 38-7
New England Patriots shook off a sloppy opening quarter to soundly beat Buffalo Bills 38-7.
An illustration of Patriots’ schematic superiority occurred on a 3rd & 5 situation in the fourth quarter, with the Patriots up 31-7. New England went with a shotgun spread formation, with wide receiver Wes Welker in the slot right. Bills quite reasonably loaded up with a blitz but inexplicably had an inside linebacker try to cover Welker while the safety who momentarily lined up over Welker blitzed off the edge. Get the picture: The Bills tried to cover one of the quickest players on the field with a linebacker who started the play at the line of scrimmage, in the gap between the right guard and the center. Welker ran a little short out, got the pass from New England Patriots quarterback Brady and turned upfield for a gain of nine and an easy first down. The Patriots went on to score on the drive. And yes, right tackle Nick Kaczur picked up the blitzing safety with ease.
A 1st & 10 play later in the quarter when Buffalo had the ball illustrated the Patriots’ personnel superiority. Inside linebacker Junior Seau was up on the line of scrimmage, showing every sign of blitzing, in the gap between the right guard and the right tackle. The positioning of the tackle rather clearly indicated that he ws locked in on Patriots’ left end, making it the responsibility of Buffalo’s lone runningback - rookie Marshawn Lynch, I believe, to handle Seau. Instead, the rookie turned outside to help the tackle, giving Seau a clear path at Bills quarterback who had to throw the ball away. Recall the tremendous blitz pick-up Patriots runningback Kevin Faulk made against San Diego a week earlier in a similar situation.
New England used its third starting offensive line combination of the season: Left tackle Matt Light, left guard Logan Mankins, center Dan Koppen, right guard Russ Hochstein, and right tackle Nick Kaczur. Hochstein filled in for the injured Stephen Neal. Last week Billy Yates started for Neal, with Hochstein taking some a few snaps throughout the game and then bunch of them after Yates had to leave the game with an injury. I don’t know if head coach Bill Belichick felt Yates was too banged up start today or if Hochstein was the better of the two in the last game, against San Diego, or if his style is simply better suited for taking on the Buffalo Bills.
Bills play a 4-3 defense with an aggressive defensive line. Patriots countered by running a lot of trap plays where either of the guards pulled inside, usually to take on linebacker. Mankins and Hochstein both had a field day tracking down and roughing up Bills defensive players. Things got so out of hand that even fullback Heath Evans picked up nine yards running behind Mankins from Patriots’ one-yard line.
The Patriots generally used a more traditional style of blocking than the fruity zone blocking they employed against New York Jets and San Diego Chargers. Patriots linemen did a good job of sometimes peeling off double-team blocks to pickup a linebacker trying to fill gap, sometimes maintaining double-team blocks that pushed defensive linemen well off of the line of scrimmage.
I think Maroney benefited from the more direct style of attack. Rather than having to read for a gap, Maroney pretty much just had to follow either Hochstein or Mankins to daylight and that seemed to suit him just fine.
Back-up tackle Ryan O’Callaghan took a couple of snaps at tight end but didn’t get into rhythm.
On Patriots’ second drive in the second half Mankins had to abort his pull right when tight Kyle Brady (it could have been David Thomas, but I’m pretty sure it was Brady) uncharacteristically whiffed a block on the Bills’ left defensive end. Mankins made a heads up play engaging the end while linebacker he was probably intending to block, Angelo Crowell, (who had long afternoon) missed the tackle.
The match-up between Light and Buffalo defensive end Aaron Schobel got quite a bit of attention before the game, which was only natural since Schobel is very good and Light has at times struggled against him. This time around Light won, and he won big. You’ll probably hear a lot of people tell you that Light got a lot of help from tight ends and runningbacks, but that’s simply not true. Light went one on one against Schobel almost the entire game and he won virtually every time. Schobel did get half-a-sack on a play-action near the goal line on the play before Gaffney’s touchdown. That was pretty much Schobel’s lone shining moment.
The Patriots were quite sloppy in the first quarter. In spite of getting the ball on Buffalo’s 35-yard line after the defense had recovered a fumble by Bills starting quarterback JP Losman forced by a sneaky Ellis Hobbs on a blindside corner blitz, the offense failed to score a touchdown. On 1st & Goal from the seven yard line Kaczur failed to block a defensive end who looped inside, resulting in runningback Laurence Maroney getting stopped for a loss of one. On second down Brady didn’t see an open Welker and instead threw an incompletion intended for wide receiver Jabar Gaffney, who was pretty well-covered on the play. On third down Brady failed to connect with the also covered wide receiver Randy Moss. Field goal kicker Stephen Gostkowski
Kaczur made a note-worthy play on drive in the second quarter that ended with a fumble by Brady on Buffalo’s one-yard line. On the fifth play of the drive Brady hit wide receiver Donte Stallworth for a gain of 28 yards off a play action fake. Maroney did a good job picking up a blitzing defensive back, and Kaczur did a nifty job of first blocking down to the inside, then quickly shuffle right to block a blitzing linebacker. Kaczur gave him a good push and then stayed on him enough to keep Brady from getting sacked.
Patriots scoring plays:
1) On 2nd & goal from Buffalo’s 8, tightend Ben Watson ran a simple short out, got the ball from Brady and turned upfield for the score that put Patriots ahead for good, 10-7. Buffalo linebacker Angelo Crowell was caught looking into the backfield, lost track of Watson
2) Brady fired perfect strike right to a slanting Randy Moss who was covered man-to-man. Moss caught the ball cleanly for a three-yard touchdown to put New England up 17-7. The Bills gambled with an all-out blitz that was picked up by the blockers. The touchdown capped a six-play 48-yard drive. The key play on the drive was a 20 yard pass over the middle to tightend Kyle Brady. The play preceding the touchdown was a spectacularly failed off-tckle right where fullback Heath Evans was dropped for a loss of one. For whatever Kazcur more or less tackle tightend Brady rather than blocking a Bill, leaving gap for Bills linebacker DiGiorgio to shoot through and tackle Evans.
3) Brady hit a wide open Jabar Gaffney in the end zone for a four yard touchdown, making the score 24-7. The key play on the drive was a 45 yard bomb to Moss that moved the ball to Buffalo’s 23-yard line.
4) Sammy Morris banged the ball into the endzone from four yards out to mke the score 31-7. The run was set-up by a play that Belichick probably doesn’t cre too much for: Brady fired a pass over the middle to Welker, who, after getting corralled at the end of a 26-yard gain, lateraled the ball to Moss who advanced it another 11 yards before getting pushed out of bounds.
5) New England’s last score was a beauty. On 2nd and inches Brady rainbowed a pass down the right sideline where Moss hauled it in and sprinted into the end zone. 38-7.
Stats fest:
Brady completed 23 of 29 passes for 311 yards, four touchdowns and no interception.
Moss had 5 catches for 115 yards and two touchdowns.
Welker had 6 catches for 69 yards.
Maroney ran 19 times for 103 yards, Morris 12 times for 46 yards.
