Taylor finished 20 of 36 for 233 yards. But per league rules, because the whistle blew while the ball was in the air, the reception should not have been awarded at all; instead, the down should have been replayed. That was putting it mildly.
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Amendola was cast as the No. 1 receiver on Monday because Julian Edelman is out with a foot injury. And he came thru in spades. “So by rule, they look at where the football was when the whistle was blown”. But we’ll add more to that play later. He was helped off the field and carted to the locker room. “Rex Ryan!” Asked if there was a message in it, Brady struggled to suppress a smile. The Bills were mixing up their blitz packages and kept the Patriots guessing and off-balance. Brady rolled out to the right and threw a short pass to Danny Amendola down the right sideline.
Tom Brady is one of the leading candidates for MVP this season. This week it was the talented 2 year speedster Sammy Watkins.
Though Taylor finished the game against the Patriots, he was hampered by the injury to the shoulder of his throwing arm. While far from ideal, the two combined for a solid effort. He was also held to just one rushing yard on four attempts. Several of those were of the teeth-rattling variety, including one to the chin late in the game from defensive end Jerry Hughes, from which it appeared Brady needed a beat to recover. Carpenter winds up banging the right upright and the miss put the Patriots at their own 38 yard line with 46 seconds in the half and all 3 timeouts. He completed a 23-yard pass to Todd Heap to set up the game-winning field goal. After a lengthy conference that was muffled by the roaring of boos from the crowd, the refs decided that they had errored, and gave the yardage on the completion and the first down to the Pats, but quashed any chances of a big touchdown (Amendola was wide open and uncontested). They slipped by Brady and Co.
Ryan said he felt disrespected by the officials’ decision to penalize him, pondering whether counterpart Bill Belichick would have received the same treatment. His cadence? “Rex Ryan”. The Buffalo defense was in his face all night, star tight end Rob Gronkowski could have posed on a milk carton, and the Patriots – though they tried – couldn’t get much working in their ground game. But the seventh 100-yard game of Amendola’s career ended early when he left with a knee injury.
Now listen, it’s not like the referees can catch every single dirty play that happens on the field.
The more important question on this night would be the distribution of Brady’s targets.
Coach Bill Belichick has shown he is willing to go away from the pass if it isn’t working. That being said, if these two teams played each other in the Super Bowl, I would have to go with the Panthers because Carolina QB Cam Newton has the ability to scorch defense with his play. Raise your hand if you’ve heard that one before. What we do from that point onward is find out where the football was at the time the whistle was blown.
The Bills, who lost special teamer Marcus Easley to a head injury in the first quarter, saw offensive tackle John Miller carted off in the second quarter.
Amendola snagged the ball and with nothing but green in front of him for the next 60 yards.
It wasn’t a good night for the officials who on national television provided more fodder for those who believe that they get worse and worse every week. He has thrown 62 touchdown passes against Buffalo, also second most all time.
James White filled in for Dion Lewis.
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The Patriots return to action on Sunday, November 29th on the road against the Denver Broncos.
