Patriots-Bills: Analysis and Comment

Let's get this out of the way so I can talk about some irrelevent stuff: The Patriots have nothing much resembling a professional football defensive secondary, and they're in dire straits heading into Monday Night's matchup against Indianapolis, who -- not by coincidence -- have two weeks to prepare for the game.

"Not a conspiracy!" say those who have it in for New England. Just so happens that New England plays four or five of the toughest teams in the league and has a bunch of injuries while Indy has seven creampuffs and then a bye the week before they play the Patriots.

I'll say this: If New England wins, it's either a sign of the Apocalypse or Bill Belichick is literally a god.

OK, let's get back to last night's miracle.

It's a good thing Buffalo is terrible, except for Willis McGaHee. He had 136 yards on 31 carries, and probably could have had a whole lot more. The openings in New England's defense look like a humongus T -- right up the middle, and everywhere deep. Even with Tedy Bruschi back on the field, the Patriots couldn't stop anything coming up the gut, and couldn't get any forward pressure on Kelly Holcomb.

That's not helping a tremendously depleted and already overmatched defensive secondary. Yes, they're going to have to learn to fend for themselves, but some help up front would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully, this Richard Seymour thing won turn into a repeat of last year's Ty Law thing. It's great that Belichick doesn't tip his hand to other teams, but the fans are dying to know what's going on with "our" players. Be nice if we could disseminate that info to just the proper parties.

Bruschi's Impact

I think there is an obvious difference between when Bruschi is on the field and when he isn't. Ya, I know I said that it didn't change Buffalo's ability from running up the middle, but Bruschi's impact is far more subtle. Despite what John Dennis says, the defense is far more organized and disciplined when Bruschi is on the field. When he's on the field and it isn't organized and disciplined, things get fixed.

As I pointed out in my post-game, maybe he had only 2 solo tackles and 5 assists on the stat sheet, but maybe Buffalo altered their game plans to work around the Big-Play man, or maybe they allocated additional resources (sorry, I went corporate there a second) to neutralize Bruschi, and that allowed other players to finally make a couple big plays. And maybe's Bruschi's direction put those players in the right places to make them.

Ultimately, I don't have the information to state this as fact, but I do have enough circumstantial evidence to support a pretty solid case.

The Running Men

These injuries are really getting out of hand. There's no other explanation other than "The football gods deem it so." The football gods like mini dynasties. They don't like anything lasting more than 5 years, and they never let anyone win three cosecutive Super Bowls. But, really, Patrick Pass was running alone in open field and his hamstring tightened up like a banjo string. Patriot players don't even need contact anymore.

Well, now we're back to Corey Dillon, who was listed as questionable, but looked pretty darn good. Not a bad option, but football heaven help us if anything else goes wrong with him. We might have Dan Klecko carrying the ball. Actually, it's probably more likely that it would be one of the receivers or one of the return men, like Ellis Hobbs; but, like Belichick told the Big Show on Monday, rather than saying who might be next on the list, "Let's just hope it doesn't come to that."

Mularkey Is Full of Baloney

Mike Mularkey really blew it. I'm surprised the Buffalo News said nothing about it. Neither did the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, and they actually gave Bills coaching a "B" grade. Mularkey challenged two Patriot pass completions where it was evident to me, a guy probably 200 yards from the play, that the calls would stand. And then, on the reception that led to New England's winning score, he didn't have a challenge left to even try to overturn a questionable, crucial call.

I don't understand some coaches sometimes. They challenge the most inconsequential plays and then have no leg to stand on when the game is on the line. (That's to say nothing of two-point conversions.) When this game comes down to it, with all the other angles you can talk about, Bill Belichick simply outcoached Mularkey ... again.

Harbinger of Unnatural Acts

The minute I saw referee Ron Winter on the big screen preparing for the coin flip, I knew it would be a poorly officiated game. His crew is not the best, and he looks like the kind of guy those lame beer commericials mock. When you're mocked by a lame beer commercial, you're in trouble.

There were some questionable calls early. There were some questionable calls late. There were some obvious calls completely missed.

This I don't understand. People who know the game can really follow it easily at the stadium. You can see so much more than a TV closeup will ever show you. So despite us standing about 200 yards from most plays, I could see some very obvious penalties to which the officials were obviously blind. Sometimes stuff right at the point of action, too. I don't get it.

Then came that defensive delay of game penalty on the Patriots ... something about "unnatural acts" that had all of us in the stands scratching our heads. Turns out it's something of a neutral zone infraction, but Winter just bungled the whole thing. I guess that was a legitimate call, but when they miss so many other plain-sight penalties, you wonder how they catch something like that.

A Couple of Actual Game Notes

1 - In case you didn't know, it's very unusual for a team to be blasted that badly in time of possession and win. A nearly 2-to-1 ratio is hard enough to believe, and in such cases, you expect the team on the short end to have been trounced. As poorly as the defense played, they certainly did a few things right. Unfortunately, we were so involved in the game, it was hard to keep track of who was making a lot of the key plays.

2 - Linebacker Mike Vrabel was one guy we knew made a few great plays. As a matter of fact, he led the team again in tackles (9 solo, 5 assists, 1 sack and a pass defensed), his third time.

3 - Brady looked pretty sharp with only a couple bad throws, but receivers continue to drop some pretty clean passes. He's also going to need to grow some eyes in the back of his head. The backside pressure was relentless, and the Pats didn't seem to have an answer for it. That's what caused Brady's fumble, incidentally.

4 - Despite a solid group of tight ends with good hands, this group seems to be tethered to the offensive line to help blocking. I think it's the difference between those lightning quick drives that you can't depend on, and those long, grinding, wear-down-the-defense drives the Patriots are capable of when Ben Watson, Christian Fauria and Daniel Graham are catching passes that have been the staple of three championships.

5 - It was good to see New England pound in those two 1-yard touchdowns, especially with the O line getting dominated so often this season. Let's hope that's a turning point.

6 - The rematch is set for 1 p.m. on Dec. 11 in Orchard Park, NY. New England has won 9 of the last 10 meetings, except that 31-0 debacle to open the 2003 season (which, of course, we all remember was avenged in the last game that season, in another game that ended 31-0).

The Gillette Stadium Experience

The traffic on Route 1 wasn't as bad as when we went to see the Chargers on a Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago. We got to the stadium in less than 20 minutes (after hitting Rte. 1) and were strolling the ramps only a few minutes later. There were no lines at the gates, but we went through more than an hour before game time.

We were standing in what I think is the southwest corner of the stadium, to the left of the end zone the Pats defended in the first quarter. We were behind section 204. (Check out the
satellite photo on Google Maps. It shows a stripped Foxboro Stadium and a half-built Gillette. Pretty neat.) We generally had a great view of the field and the scoreboards (when no one in front of us was standing), and we were shielded from the brisk wind.

Unfortunately, it was the one section in the stadium where the people in the last row of the section just in front of the standing-room area felt it necessary to stand, despite the fact that no one in front of them were standing. Just goes to show that you'll meet jerks and idiots no matter where you are. A group of young men standing beside us asked the guys with seats if they'd sit down, and they guys with seats told them (basically) "we want to stand, and we can". I don't understand it. Eventually, they did sit, but it was well into the first half, and people were in bad moods.

The same group of young men beside us complained to one of the stadium employees whose job it is to keep the standing-room people behind a red line painted on the deck about 2-3 feet behind a railing about 2 feet behind the last row of seats. He, of course, said there was nothing he could do. It sounded like, "You paid $60 per person to stand here? Tough luck." As much as the Krafts have done for the Patriots and their fans, this is a little insulting.

We were pretty far from the vending areas, which is probably just as well. Last thing I need is a greasy sausage or bucket of wings. And since we parked at the stadium and didn't walk a couple miles, I wasn't dehydrated enough to splurge several bucks for a beverage.

At least there were speakers in the area. There are lots of standing room areas that you can't hear the stadium announcer. Overall, it was a decent place if you have standing room tickets, but we'll be checking out a few more areas later in the season.

I really wish I could get an explanation of the red line, because it's not just in places behind seating areas.