New England Patriots slog their way to narrow victory over Buffalo Bills
The New England Patriots 19-17 victory over the visiting Buffalo Bills in both teams’ regular season-opener at Gillette was neither pretty nor acheived with much efficiency. Patriots fell behind on the first play from scrimmage when quarterback Tom Brady was blind-sided by a blitzing Takeo Spikes whose hit jarred the ball lose. Buffalo’s London Fletcher scooped up the ball and scored from five yards out.
New England put together only three solid drives in the gme, and the first came on the possession following Buffalo’s quick score. Patriots marched 80 yards on 9 plays. Laurence Maroney produced 49 of those yards on two carries, but it was veteran wide receiver Troy Brown who finished off the drive with a nine-yard touchdown catch to tie the game at 7.
Bills retook the lead on the following posessions when they scored 53 yard field goal at the end of an 11 play, 48 yard drive.
After squashing New England’s next drive, Bills scored their first offensive touchdown on a 18-yard carry to complete an 8 play, 73 yard drive and extending Buffalo’s lead to 17-7 with 11:40 to go in the second quarter.
The teams spent the rest of the first half stopping each other well short of scoring more points.
The Bills opened the second half with a drive that took them to New England’s seven yard line. Instead of kicking a field goal on fourth down, Buffalo went for first but were stopped by backup linebacker Don Davis for no gain.
Patriots took advantage of Buffalo’s mistake by driving 93 yards and scoring on 17 yard touchddown pass to Kevin Faulk. The big play of the drive was a 34 yard pass to tight end Ben Watson.
New England promptly stopped Buffalo’s next drive and then scored a 32 yard field goal to tie the game.
A penalty on the ensuing kick-off return backed up the Bills to their own eight yard line and on third-and-eleven, Ty Warren sacked Buffalo’s quarterback in the end zone for a game winning safety.
Overall, the game was a typical early-season affair, with uneven play. The Patriots strong suits were the running game and defense, and the latter really came to life in the second half, after Buffalo’s ill-advised and failed attempt to pick up a first down on fourth-and one from New England’s seven yard line. I was surprised to Davis, who really isn’t all that, in on a short-yardage situation, and it was just as surprising that he made the stop. That’s Patriots football: You never know who’s going to chip in the pivotal play.
Three plays stood out, not because of their importance but because of what happened:
1) Buffalo’s second touchdown. It absolutely looked like there were only ten New England defenders were on the field. Yes, Buffalo’s Thomas ran right through nose tackle Vince Wilfork’s arm tackle, but it just seemed as if a linebacker or a safety was missing in the middle of the field. Very strange play.
2) Maroney carried the ball on a strange-looking play just two plays before Faulk’s touchdown catch. New England was in a power-right formation and left guard Logan Mankins pulled to his right at the snap, but Maroney plowed straight ahead for a measly one yard gain. Did Maroney not follow the blocks correctly? Was Mankins’ pull a tricky attempt to draw an inside linebacker out of the running lane? Did Mankins pull when he should have blocked straight ahead?
3) Corey Dillon, who had a solid day running the ball, sealed the deal when he picked up a first down on fourth-and-two on the last drive of the game. On that play the Patriots did not mess around with any pulling guards: Fullback Heath Evans lead the way for Dillon off-tackle left, with the line slamming into Buffalo’s defensive front. It was a good power play and New England won it. It was good to see.
New England ran for 183 yards on 41 carries, including three Brady kneel downs. Brady completed only 11 0f 23 passes, with six different players making catches.
To sum it up: Our running game is just as strong as it looked in the pre-season, our passing game needs time to adjust to life without Deion Branch and our defense is strong but flawed.
Post-Game quotes from Patriots.com
Matt Light on the Bills’ first touchdown:
That first play of the game was a situation where I should have squeezed that guy. It’s just recognizing things like that. Those are the kind of things you just can’t do and since those things were done, I think that’s what put us in the hole.
Reche Caldwell:
We just executed better in the second half. The quarterback was being pressured a lot and there were a lot of blitzes. We picked them [the blitzes] up in the second half, ran good routes, and caught the ball.
Don Davis on the difference between the first and the second halves:
We came in at halftime and said, ‘All right, we played bad football [in the first half]. We’re down by 10. Let’s go out and play the way we know how to play.” We go out there [after the half] and you just felt it from the first play all the way through and everybody stepped up.
Rosevelt Colvin on the second half:
I think we settled down. If you look at the Super Bowl and the playoffs, if you get caught up in the hype and caught up in trying to do too much to make a play guys are out of position—one guy this play one guy the next play, and you end up getting gassed. I think everybody settled down [in the second half], tried to figure out what they’ve been doing wrong and tried to go back to playing technique. And you saw the results.
Bill Belichick on his decision to go for it on fourth-and-two late in the game:
It was a tough decision. You know, we’re in field goal range, three point range, we’d force them to go for a touchdown. But at that point in the game you like to make one play. And that was the strength of our team is being able to run the ball, at least in this game, you know, we felt like that was the yard, that if we made it, it would end the game. And that is what it did. And so, you know, fortunately, those guys came through. We got good blocking and good running and that was the big play of the game.
The view from Buffalo
Buffalo News points out two potentially game-altering mistakes buy the Bills other than the failed fourth down and the penalty on the kick off:
One play after the safety, Bills rookie safety Donte Whitner intercepted a Tom Brady pass and was streaking down the sideline for what would have been a go-ahead touchdown. But cornerback Nate Clements was called for an illegal block on the return.
With 6:30 left and the Bills driving for a potential go-ahead score, a first-down pass to Peerless Price for 10 yards to the Pats’ 38 was offset by a 10-yard block-in-the-back penalty on tight end Robert Royal. It was more of a nudge than a block. But it was more than the Bills could overcome.
Here’s how the Bills players saw the change from first to second half:
“They used more three-step drops,” said Bills end Chris Kelsay. “I got chipped [blocked by a back or tight end] in the second half, where the first half I didn’t get chipped at all. But it’s still our job to get to the quarterback.”
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Meanwhile, the Bills’ offense bogged down in the second half. Willis McGahee ran well between the tackles in the first half. The Pats’ 3-4 scheme is notoriously tough to run wide on. In the second half, McGahee was stuffed on first down and the Bills couldn’t sustain any drives to get the ground game working.
“In the second half, they did a lot more stunting and pinching [with the defensive line], but we have to overcome that,” said guard Chris Villarrial.
Kevin of BfloBlog.com doesn’t see much upside for the Bills, even though they lost by only a slim margin:
One school of thought is that the Bills hung tough against a high quality opponent, forcing them to battle back and scrape by to get a victory.
My school of thought is that the Bills caught New England completely unprepared in the first half. The Bills have new coaches, a new offense, and a new gameplan. New enough to give themselves a 17-7 lead at halftime. It took the Pats that one half to figure out what the Bills were doing, and then they completely shut them down.
Greg at Buffalo Bills Review belongs to the first school of thought: “The season is young, but 0-1 still is not a fun place to be. Even still, there were some great positives from this game.”
Singapore Sling takes the loss hard and directs his anger in a specific direction:
If they would have kicked it, they keep the momentum, made so the Pats would have to get 2 touchdowns instead of a touchdown and a field goal and would have kept the New England fans out of the game. Instead F*CKING coach DICK Juron decides to go for it. Don’t make the first down, the fans get into the game and the Bills momentum is gone and never shows up again. Brady leads the Pats back and wins the game. All because of F*CKING DICK Juron. BURN IN HELL DICK!!!!!!!!
Boston media roundup:
The Boston Globe’s Mike Reiss thinks the difference was a more aggressive defense in the second half, one that played with more energy.
Ron Borges, of the same newspaper, focuses on Davis’ critical fourth down stop. He also takes a shot at the fans who booed the Patriots at the end of the lackluster first half: “It was a performance so frustrating that the supposedly loyal Patriots fans booed their team as it left the field.” Mr. Borges is a major-league asshole, as Dick Cheney would say.
The Globe’s coverage is rounded by Christopher L. Gasper, who looked at the game from the Bills’ point of view, and Bob Duffy who dubs Maroney and Dillon “Cashmere” and “Rawhide.” I kind of like that.
The Boston Herald’s John Tomase notes that the ground-game out-gained the passing game for the first time since December 5, 2004, and let’s center Dan Koppen sum up New England’s miserable first half: “We were just playing stupid.” Tomase also adds a good quote by Junior Seau, who was steady if not spectacular in his inside-linebacker role, on head coach Bill Belichick’s halftime speech: “He told us how much he loved us.”
Michael Felger notes that Davis said after the game that he had never before been in a short-yardage package with the Patriots, highlighting the team’s scary lack of depth at linebacker. He also points out that the Bills often played with five rookies on the field and the Patriots’ offense still managed only 17 points. Well, that’s what happens when you play stuipd.
Dan Ventura spotlights Rosevelt Colvin’s three tackles and a sack effort
I find the Deion Branch situation utterly boring, but if you need your daily Deion fix, Steve Buckley has it.
Like the Globe’s Duffy, Albert Breer zooms in on the runningbacks, but comes up with a less elegant way to describe them: “Where Dillon is the bull, Maroney is the thoroughbred and Kevin Faulk the jack-of-all-trades.” What really separates Dillon from Maroney is nine years of wear and tear in the NFL, most of them with the awful Cincinnati Bengals.
Breer also posted some interesting locker-room quotes on the Herald’s Point After blog.
Hometown bloggers:
Beth likes the way the Patriots battled their way to a win:
In the aftermath of that first play, I didn’t even think we’d win. The Pats have now won 6 home openers in a row. They’ve still won three of the last five Super Bowls. They’ve gotten a crucial first win off the ground against a team that was clearly playing with no holds barred right out of the gate. If there’s anything you can fault them for, it’s being knocked back on their heels a little bit in the first half. But that Buffalo team was playing to win today, from the very first second. You have to give them credit. And give the Patriots even more credit for still beating them, despite how likely an upset looked heading into halftime.
She also makes an excellent comment about the Deion Branch situation.
