He threw an 18-yard TD pass to Cameron Brate to trim Tampa Bay’s deficit to 16-14 with just over two minutes left, and almost led his team downfield to win after Stephen Gostkowski kicked his fourth field goal to put the Patriots up by five.
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“Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski added, “. this is a different week than any other week.
This will be a problem in the playoffs – should New England get that far – if the shortcomings aren’t fixed.
Teams don’t have to play the proverbial “perfect game” to beat these Patriots like when Bill Belichick’s machine is truly humming. “I wish we could’ve scored more points, offensively, but defense really held their own”.
The Bucs have not yet released Nick Folk, who missed three field goals in Thursday’s 19-14 loss to the Patriots, giving him six missed kicks in five days.
Running back Doug Martin provided a lift in his return from a suspension for violating the NFL’s policy on performance enhancers with 74 yards rushing and one TD. Simply put, they need to stop making dumb mistakes.
Jackson finished with five catches for 106 yards on nine targets Thursday, including a 41-yarder.
Tampa Bay’s kicking woes are one of the more inexplicable trends in recent National Football League history. Losing Tom Brady’s favorite target Julian Edelman in a preseason game was tough enough, and his apparent replacement Danny Amendola has done well when he has been not sidelined by a concussion. They can play any personnel group, they can change from week-to-week, they can be in even-front one week, an odd-front next week, they will play dime the whole game. Dropped passes lead to stalled drives, which leads to fewer points.
New England led 13-7 at the half despite its first drive’s ending with an interception, with Tom Brady throwing well behind receiver Chris Hogan. They’re also 9-3 against the spread in their last 12 games despite failing to cover in three of their first four games. It’s hard to consistently win games if a team loses the turnover battle. Matt Patricia’s unit still surrendered 424 total yards, but they allowed only 14 points in the Patriots victory.
The Bucs come in with a 2-1 record, while the Patriots are 2-2, having lost to Carolina last Sunday on the game’s final play. However, in Patriots vs Buccaneers it will take them more than 25 points to win.
Yes, the Patriots defense looked better than it had in the first four weeks of the season, but Bucs place kicker Nick Folk deserves an assist on the Patriots win.
Folk beat out Aguayo for the Bucs’ kicking job in training camp after Aguayo went 22-of-31 on field goals and 32-of-34 on extra points a year ago.
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New England got on the board first with a Gostkowski field goal of 27 yards.
