OK, the game’s not quite in the books yet, but both third-string quarterback Matt Guttierez and 86th-string running back Kyle Eckel are both on the field at the same time, which as far as we can tell is the visual equivalent of taking a knee. So we’re calling it at 52-7.
Tedy Bruschi cast a Halloweenish figure on the field yesterday in another Pats whitewash.
Now, 52-7 is the biggest rout yet. Against the team that was supposed to put up the second-toughest test yet. Does that mean the Patriots are getting better? Quite possibly.
No matter what it does, it shows that they’re getting more diverse. Randy Moss only caught two passes, but the Pats rolled. Tom Brady threw three touchdowns, again, and ran for two. With the Redskins clearly keying on Moss, Laurence Maroney looked terrific.
Then there was the defense, which didn’t allow points until the game was well out of hand, already up 52-0. Tedy Bruschi forced three, count them, three, fumbles (Editor’s note: It was actually Mike Vrabel who forced all three fumbles, not Bruschi as alleged here, with an assist to an alert commenter for pointing it out). Rosevelt Colvin returned one for a touchdown. And the entire time, Bill Belichick stood on the sideline looking slightly smug and unfulfilled, which is the exact thing that will keep the team moving forward.
For what it’s worth, not that it matters at all - period - in the win-loss column, here’s the final heat-check board:
Tom Brady: 29-for-38, 356 yards passing, 3 TD’s through the air, 2 rushing TD’s
At a certain point, even video game offenses get completely out of hand. And when you consider the fact that New England backup Matt Cassel was nearly as effective as the Washington offense was all day, if not more so, this qualifies as one of those games.
After all, the final score is all you need to see to know how ridiculous it was.
Here’s one thing Patriot fans have learned this year: Give him a quarter, and Randy Moss will probably find a way to get in the end zone.
After a beautiful fake spike, Tom Brady found Moss in the right side of the end zone, completed a 6-yard touchdown pass and gave New England a dominant, 24-0 lead heading into halftime. This after a drive sputtered but still ended in a field goal, after another drive ended in Brady’s 28th touchdown. Remember, he has a rushing touchdown in the first quarter, too.
As expected, Washington has given Brady a bit more trouble than anyone else has been able to. He’s thrown 7 incompletions already, more than any other week. But despite that, the superstar passer has still completed 24 passes, racking up 237 yards and two touchdowns in the process. Wes Welker already has 76 yards on 7 catches, running back Kevin Faulk has 7 for 57 yards, and Donte’ Stallworth has 3 for 29, a strong start for him.
Add in 73 yards on 13 carries and 37 yards on 2 receptions for Laurence Maroney, and that dynamic offense Pats fans have grown to adore is humming again.
As if Washington wasn’t already having a tough day, they haven’t been able to do anything on offense after a solid start, with linebackers like Mike Vrabel and Tedy Bruschi all over quarterback Jason Campbell. If things don’t change soon, this one could get ugly.
Not that New England fans will find anything wrong with that, we’re sure.
Evidently this is how you put a stamp on a win … by taking a 42-7 lead to the locker room.
In all seriousness, what else can you say about this afternoon’s one-sided walkover? Tom Brady is 11 for 13 through the air, with an ungodly five first half touchdowns. Better yet, he’s getting all his targets involved. The first pass was to Donte’ Stallworth, then he hit his newest weapon, Kyle Brady. By the time Randy Moss got involved, he made it 28-7, following the shocking Willie Andrews kickoff return for a touchdown (Did anyone see him bringing that back before it happened? Really? We sure as hell didn’t), and Randy went out and decided he wanted a second scoring grab for the books shortly thereafter. Throw the Wes Welker score on the final drive in there, and Miami fans had plenty to boo about as their team left the field.
This, of course, doesn’t even take the defensive dominance being flexed out there into account. It’s stunning. Cleo Lemon looks like a middle school passer who can’t find an open man because he’s not on a sandlot field. Ronnie Brown is chugging along, but inevitably his progress gets popped by Tedy Bruschi or Junior Seau, who’s flying around like he still has vengeance pent up for Miami. It’s terrifying.
Clearly this thing is over. The only question is how bad it’ll get in the second half.
At least when it comes to drama with the Pats. All those lingering questions about New England holding on for a win? Yeah, they disappeared in the fourth, when Randy Moss scored again but had the points erased because of a near-phantom push off.
Randy Moss and Donte’ Stallworth? They were just part of a crew of Patriots who trashed the Dallas secondary yesterday afternoon. Wes Welker might ring a bell, too.
In the end, the game’s fourth quarter served as strong reassurance of two things: 1) The Patriots offense really is as dominant as it has appeared throughout the season. Tom Brady threw a monstrous five touchdown passes - FIVE!! - and actually threw a sixth to Moss before both were taken away, as mentioned above. Not that Brady would care, of course. He and his teammates were too busy beating a fellow undefeated team.
That’s what the New England defense was doing, too, in the classic “bend, but don’t break” fashion of more famous Patriots stops in recent years. The Pats gave up another field goal, but Junior Seau picked off the first pass on Tony Romo’s final drive to put a ribbon on the New England win.
In fact, that pick was not only pre-ordained by CBS commentator Phil Simms, it was also highlighted by another insightful comment from the former Giants quarterback (shocker, I know). Simms was talking about New England’s rejuvenated approach in 2007, and chalked some of the team’s early success to the organizational realization during the offseason that certain teams are just going to score points against you, no matter how good a performance you throw at them. It’s absolutely the truth. The Pats D can keep shutting down receivers of T.O.’s ilk over the middle. They can keep stuffing running backs at the line of scrimmage and reading prescribed passing routes before they happen.
But against certain teams - Dallas, Indianapolis, maybe Pittsburgh - they’re still going to give up 20, 25 points. It’s going to happen.
That’s why Brady and the team’s explosive offense is so impressive. Tom Terrific completed all the big passes he needed to. Was he as perfect as he’s been earlier this year? No. But prior games were being played against a defense full of Pro Bowlers either.
In the end, that’s what makes this week’s victory so impressive. The Patriots won when they were tested. Finally. And they did it with less than maximum drama, which in this case just makes the victory even more impressive.
Well, that went about as good as we could have hoped, didn’t it?
Dallas has had a really hard time keeping up with Wes Welker in the early going.
The Patriots jumped out to an early 7-0 lead, then built on it by the end of the period. Tom Brady is finding Wes Welker all over the slot, Dante Stallworth seems to be finding seams and looks like he’s on the verge of breaking one open and Sammy Morris is running the ball with authority. Again.
And then that Randy Moss guy scored a touchdown, too. Forgot about that.
And those offensive accomplishments shouldn’t overshadow what the defense has done, thoroughly frustrating the elusive Tony Romo and Dallas offense into mistakes and questionable decisions.
In fact, for all the hype about Brady and Romo, it may be the New England linebackers who have the biggest say in what happens in the rest of this game. If they can keep getting pressure on Romo, who has already seen the business from a blitzing Rodney Harrison and co., the game could go swimmingly for New England.
But it’s early for that, even if the first quarter returns are about as strong as could be hoped for.
And not by a little bit. As Rodney Harrison works his way through the week’s practices, it’s becoming clear how much better he makes the entire New England defense.
Rodney Harrison is back, and that makes the Pats a whole lot better.
No one here is going to defend Harrison’s use of Human Growth Hormone. What he did was clearly wrong, regardless of whether he was acquiring it to recover from an injury, get a bigger hat size so Tedy Bruschi would finally stop calling him mini-cabeza or just to get buff to impress the ladies. He just shouldn’t have dipped into the cesspool of performance enhancing drugs. And he definitely shouldn’t have done it so clumsily, using his own name to order through an online service based out of upstate New York. Clearly, Harrison never heard of Eliott Spitzer.
But now that he’s done his time, Harrison is back. For that matter, not only is he back, he suddenly has a reason to return with a vengeance, a factor which has transformed him from a dominant DB to an almost unstoppable one in the past.
Harrison is that guy. The type A personality who goes off at the drop of a hat, yet only when it’s fortuitous for him to do so. The team leader who you would never want near a tank in the military. The playmaker who looks like the guy who hits the clubs after big wins, but turns out to head straight home to his family’s house in the ‘burbs.
But Harrison always needs an agenda to get him juiced up. It’s in his blood. That’s where the current HGH controversy actually helps him, and New England in the process. While he might be a bit rusty for the first quarter or so, Harrison now has people to prove wrong. Again. And while he’s made it clear that he won’t talk at length about the suspension now that it’s over, he’s almost certainly creating a mental rolodex of names, people who have brought it up, a group of personal Harrison dissidents that he can use as ammunition for his personal tackling powder keg.
What Harrison brings to the defense is undeniable. He’s athletic enough to cover more ground, providing a valuable buffer in both the run and pass game. His sheer presence allows other defensive backs to thrive. Just look at Asante Samuel’s performance. While he was close to gathering in a pair of picks last week in his first start of the season, he couldn’t ever quite finish the deal. With Harrison back behind him, Samuel will have a better safety net behind him, and impetus to try and jump more routes in the process.
Of course, the Samuel example is just the start of a snowball of advances the unit is likely to make with Harrison back on board. But that’s the point. His influence is almost too large to measure, the Tom Brady of the defense in both his understanding of the team’s systems and his role in building pride and performance.
And that’s precisely why the undefeated Pats just got a lot better without even playing another game.
Has anyone else noticed how much talk about tonight’s Patriots-Bengals firestorm has centered on it being a “offensive explosion”? Doesn’t that seem like just the kind of bulletin board material that Tedy Bruschi and the Pats defense feasts on … constantly?
In case you didn’t notice, Ellis Hobbs knows how to create a ruckus, and he’s been proving it all fall.
We thought so, too. Which is why, in combination with the Bengals characteristic defense that ebbs and flows between mediocre and downright shoddy, we’re predicting a surprisingly one-sided Pats win tonight. Tom Brady and his phalanx of multifaceted receivers should be able to put up plenty of points on the Cincinnati defensive backfield. But Carson Palmer, Chad Johnson and T.J. Whosyamama? They may need some help to do any serious scoreboard lighting.
That’s because the Patriots have an emerging star and team leader in their defensive backfield. And no, he’s not the guy who held out of training camp looking for a pile of money suitable to sleep on. It’s Ellis Hobbs, a former running back who’s finally getting completely comfortable with life as an NFL cornerback, a guy who can lay punishing hits but emerged as a top cover cornerback down the stretch of the 2007 playoffs.
There’s two distinct reasons why Hobbs will show up with particular gusto tonight: 1) Hobbs’ biggest strength is in direct, man-to-man coverage, which the Pats are sure to wear out tonight against the handful of dangerous receivers Cincinnati puts on the field every down, and 2) He always plays with an enormous chip on his shoulder, trying to stand out against top-flight receivers like Marvin Harrison and, hell, Chad Johnson, Mr. Future Hall of Fame himself.
Sure, Hobbs may live in the shadow of other great defensive backs on his own team, but he’s becoming the kind of stand out stopper that won’t live there for long. While Rodney Harrison may be the unit’s best hitter, Hobbs is second with a bullet. And while Asante Samuel may be the group’s highest profile star with his timely interceptions and, how should we say, flamboyant “Get Paid” tattoo, Hobbs is the sturdy, energy man who makes hits and keeps things from happening.
Tonight he’ll probably get plenty of chances to keep things from happening. We, for one, are pretty damn sure he’ll do his job, too.
Here’s the latest Pats injury report, courtesy of the Globe’s man on the beat, Mike Reiss and his Reiss’s Pieces blog:
Limited participation in practice
QB Tom Brady (right shoulder)
OLB Rosevelt Colvin (ankle)
CB Randall Gay (thigh)
RB Laurence Maroney (groin)
G Stephen Neal (shoulder)
WR Donte’ Stallworth (knee)
WR Kelley Washington (hamstring)
NT Vince Wilfork (shoulder)
DE Mike Wright (knee)
G Billy Yates (shoulder)
Brady is probable. Every other player on the report is questionable (50-50).
Anyone else want to bet that all those players, with the possible exception of Stallworth, give it a go at Paul Brown Stadium tonight? Yeah, we didn’t think so.
And just for good measure, we leave you with three keys to the game for each side, courtesy of ESPN and Stats Inc.
Naturally, keep with us come game time, as we’ll be giving Quarter by 1/4 breakdowns as the action moves along, as always.
Ho hum, another easy quarter against an overmatched back-up quarterback. Another blowout and, most importantly, another win.
Junior Seau and the Pats linebacking corps looks NASTY. No surprises there.
If anyone’s surprised by the margin of New England’s victory this afternoon, perhaps they shouldn’t be. Last night we projected a much closer game than the 38-7 rout was - Tom Brady to Randy Moss on the first possession of the final quarter was the official touchdown capper - and while we didn’t predict the near-immediate injury of Buffalo quarterback J.P. Losman, it’s hard to imagine it would have mattered, at least to any significant degree.
What’s more, the Pats established the run game against a decent defense. And the Bills, on the other hand, were allowed one decent offensive possession - one - which is an improvement on the Jets and Chargers the previous two weeks. How many drives did the Jets and Chargers put up, you ask? Two.
Clearly, the defense is solid, and that’s not going to change. Mike Vrabel looks as versatile as ever and may be even more comfortable back in his more traditional roles. Adalius Thomas has been the uber-versatile threat the Pats envisioned, adding a dramatic pick and return against the Chargers to emphasize just how much he can affect an opponent’s offense. Roosevelt Colvin looks more stolid than ever, and Junior Seau is, well, Junior Seau, a hitting machine regardless of age.
So, if the Pats are clicking on all cylinders, what are they going to work on improving? If you were going to say penalties, think again. New England committed two - count them, two - penalties in the entire game Sunday. That’s less than half of what their opponents put up, and shows just how precise they have been, despite having new pieces in on defense with Rodney Harrison and Richard Seymour still conspicuously absent, and with all the new wide outs, etc. on offense.
That’s all you can say, and it’s just about all good for the Patriots. Which goes to prove one thing: We’re idiots for even suggesting the Bills might be able to keep close. But you already knew that, didn’t you.
It’s one thing to play a perfect half - the Pats showed that last year in Indianapolis, didn’t they? - but it’s another entirely to close the game as hot as you start it.
As much as the offense kept pace, the second half Sunday was all about the Pats D.
Cue up the tape ladies and gentlemen, that’s pretty much what New England did Sunday night.
No, the scoring wasn’t quite as lopsided in the second half, but that’s largely a credit to the Patriots defense. Belichick’s linebacking homies were dead-on throughout their roles, with Adalius Thomas and Roosevelt Colvin wreaking havoc on anything carrying a football. Want to know how nasty the ‘backers were? Just consider the final line of fantasy superstar LaDanian Tomlinson: 18 carries, 43 yards. Zippo TD’s. That’s right LT, you just got owned.
Naturally, so did Philip Rivers. The young Chargers signal caller looked befuddled throughout the Sunday night showdown, reactions that were particularly pronounced in the second half. Some of the problems could certainly be chalked up to an adaptation to Norv Turner’s offense, but much of it had to be keyed on New England’s perpetual stunting and off-timed blitzes, serious factors in forcing two interceptions and a fumble, not to mention the fumble which San Diego was able to pounce back on top of.
Add to those problems another strong offensive half, complete with the coup de grace moment of Sammy Morris shoving the ball into the end zone on an otherwise meaningless touchdown, and you’ve got an immensely complete Pats victory, from minute one to 48.
Will it happen again? With the way New England has played through two weeks, that seems possible. Then again, more injuries could strike and the team could be struck nearly paralyzed by mishaps.
Guess what LT? That guy in the hoodie? Yeah, right now he owns you. Sorry bro.
Then again, that’s what some said about their chances to open the season after losing Richard Seymour to injury and Rodney Harrison to, well, his own dumb mistakes.
Interesting to watch how that turned out, isn’t it?
Welcome to the first of a never-ending series of half-by-half breakdowns of - hopefully - Patriot victories. Regardless of outcome, we’ll be here to walk you through everything that happened in Sunday or Monday’s game, one half at a time.
How good were the Pats last night? Don’t take our word for it, take Tom Terrific’s.
Naturally, yesterday’s 38-14 blowout is a heck of a place to start. And why not jump in with the man who continues to make defenses cringe and women swoon; Tom Brady?
It’s hard to quantify the influence Brady has on the Pats or his importance to the team’s offensive flow. On the other hand, it’s easy to quantify just how successful he’s been of late. In fact, let’s do that now. Last night, he was 25-for-31 overall, and a good chunk of the best of those 25 completions came in the first half. He had pinpoint touchdown passes to both Randy Moss and tight end Benjamin Dr. Watson. He showed moxie when under pressure. And despite his first interception of the year, an interception on a toss-up ball for Moss in the closing moments of the first half that killed yet another potential scoring drive, Brady was nearly impeccable. Again.
Of course, he was getting plenty of help from Moss, Watson and the rest of a vibrant corps of receivers. While Moss continued his push for a best supporting Oscar, Watson looks like he’s finally emerging as the pass-catching tight end that everyone thought he would be last year. Add to that Wes Welker, who set up two more scores in the first half, and the Pats offense was clearly running on all cylinders. Early.
That, of course, doesn’t even mention the defense, which hounded the best offense in the year a season ago into two turnovers and generally frustrated San Diego into more mistakes and frustration than a toy manufacturer who decided to move operations to China three months ago. Adalius Thomas showed he’s the real deal, and also made it clear why the Pats were willing to lay out so much to get him. Funny how an interception return for a touchdown which, in the process, serves as a direct punch to the gut, will do that.
Oh, there was so much more, too. But we’ll get to that later. For now, suffice it to say that the Pats were very good in the first half … to say the least.
