The Haphazard Blog

This was a game where it looked like it was over pretty early, the only question was “How much would the Patriots win by?”. I think the prognosticators were shaken by the close game Green Bay had. I think that’s a case of them discounting how good the Green Bay defense played (and is). There isn’t a whole lot to say about this game, but here are my thoughts.

The front 7 is down to the last bit of their depth, mostly due to injuries and a suspension for Brandon Spikes. With that, the Bills were running wild on the defense and inexplicably started to pass in red zone. Killed their momentum and they were forced to settle for a field goal and let Bill Belichick make adjustments for the next series.

I’ve noticed that as much praise Devin McCourty gets, teams are not afraid of him. They attack him and are able to complete passes against him. I think who should get some consideration/recognition for defensive rookie of the year, but Ndamukong Suh has been a beast and quarterbacks must be scared of him.

Rob Gronkowski seemed to have a possible touch down, but the ball was under thrown by Tom Brady. It would’ve been a great way to open the game with a 77 yard touch down on their first play. On the day, Brady had 3 touch downs, 2 to Gronkowski, and set a new bar for most consecutive passes without an interception. CBS was showing the graphic comparing him to Bernie Kosar and Bart Starr. They included the number of touch downs over that span and Brady was way ahead. I wonder if that’s a record for most consecutive touch downs without an interception. People are pretty quick top point put that there have been some lucky drops during this streak, but I doubt any of them have reviewed all the passes that Kosar and Starr threw. Obviously there is a luck component to a streak like that.

Gronkowski pulled in a great catch running down the seam on a safety. He has the safety trailing him and reached back with one hand to pull the ball in for a big gain on 3^rd down. The Patriots played well without Aaron Hernandez this week. (I wonder if Hernandez was injured while high stepping (I think that’s what it was) into the end zone against the Packers?).

Wes Welker had a tough drive (2 drops) and overall a tough game (he added another drop). You could see he was not pleased with himself.

The defense continued to do what it has done all year. They forced turnovers (6!) and hit hard. It was an impressive job by them and now they can rest players as needed with nothing to play for next week. They have locked up the AFC East, #1 seed (home field throughout the playoffs) and the best AFC record. As an added bonus, the Raiders were knocked out of playoff contention which guarantees the Patriots a top 20 pick in the 2011 NFL draft.

Update: Saw a couple interesting Patriots tidbits.

Brady has thrown a touch down in each game this season. If he throws one next week he will be the fifth quarterback to do it since the NFL went to a 16-game schedule in 1978. I was surprised by this for 2 reasons. First, just how rare it is and second, that Brady didn’t do this in 2007. I checked, and the Jets shut him out in week 15.

The Patriots have gone 7 games without a turnover, which extends their own record. The old record was 4 games.