A stout Buffalo defense led to a frustrated Tom Brady as the Buffalo Bills attempted to topple the New England Patriots in Foxborough on Monday Night Football.
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The New England Patriots ground out a bruising 20-13 victory over the Buffalo Bills to keep their unbeaten start to the season intact. The Patriots quarterback had his least efficient game of 2015 (20 of 39, 277 yards, one touchdown, one interception), rating a below-average 72.3. The Patriots used two of those timeouts, but only needed 33 seconds to run six plays to cover 62 yards and score on a 20-yard pass to running back James White.
So how were the Bills able to hit Brady time and time and time again (10 time, according to the official statistics)?
Had Amendola kept running for the touchdown, it would have given the Patriots a commanding 17-3 lead.
The Patriots are obviously banged up and their offensive line has some work to do figuring out how to better protect the one guy they absolutely can not lose. Brady was only sacked once but was hit numerous times.
The call hurt the Pats as they were unable to score on the drive, missing a field goal four plays later.
Not long after, history repeated itself when returner Leodis McKelvin fumbled on a punt return, setting up a Patriots field goal that would serve as the game’s dagger.
Finally, on the final play of the game (which it should not have been), Sammy Watkins caught a pass from Tyrod Taylor and bolted for the sideline, falling backwards out of bounds, untouched, to try to stop the clock. Had the officials correctly determined that the whistle blew with the ball in the air, the down would have been replayed. The play loomed large because the Patriots’ drive petered out, forcing a missed 54-yard field goal attempt from Stephen Gostkowski.
What might you get if you took a group of the largest shot putters you could find right out of the Highland games and charged them with protecting the most important asset to a multi million dollar organization?
“Like always, we have come up short many times, being here where you think you’ve got them [the Patriots] on the ropes”.
“We were down to two healthy receivers”, Brady said.
-Buffalo pulled even with 10:29 left in the third quarter when LeSean McCoy took a hand-off 27 yards and successfully dove for the pylon in the front right corner of the end zone for a touchdown (10-10). “He’s smart. He gets rid of the ball when he needs to”.
“Yeah, we have a lot of things that are kind of in the playbook, so that’s one of them”, Brady told reporters after the game. In what was the first of many cold weather games for the New England Patriots, tempers flared and the offense looked sub-zero cold. You go with Belichick, you soak in the knowledge and you win the Super Bowls.
As you might expect, he’s pretty fired up and has been turning in some incredible performances as his side have gone 10-0.
The rule goes on to note that if a player has possession at the time of the whistle, the team can elect to take possession at the point of possession or re-do the play.
“It felt good”, said White, who focused on increasing his strength after his rookie season in order to make himself harder to bring down.
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Needless to say, this game was not great from a Bills perspective, but they are still right in it. They need a win next week against Kansas City to go to 6-5 and then probably a must-win the following week hosting the Houston Texans.
