Patriots Strike Back With A Vengeance

Bob George

Oct 6, 2014 at 12:41am ET

FOXBOROUGH - Listen to coach. We're on to Cincinnati.

And "on to" is putting it mildly.

New England was rife with unsettling feelings towards the Patriots all week long. The lopsided loss at Kansas City on Monday night set Patriot Nation off on a Chicken Little mentality all week long. Tom Brady was questioned as to his fitness to continue to lead this team. Bill Belichick might have become the author of the newest catch phrase. The Bengals came into Gillette Stadium on Sunday night as a one-point favorite. It was the second time since the Patriots' last Super Bowl win that the Patriots were a home dog.

Fortunately, Cincinnati is still a team that cannot win a prime time game or a postseason game. And all of New England can collectively exhale. Brady threw two touchdown passes, Stevan Ridley hit triple digits in rushing, and Rob Gronkowski looked somewhat like his old self with six catches and a touchdown. The Patriots ran up a big early lead and made it stand up with a 43-17 win.

Rob Gronkowski caught six passes and a touchdown in the Patriot win over Cincinnati on Sunday night.
(USA TODAY Images)

Belichick bluntly and relentlessly refused to answer questions about the loss last Monday night at Arrowhead Stadium with his now-famous "We're on to Cincinnati" retort. The coach, as always, proved that he is all omniscient in that his team was the most focused all season long, and took it to the Bengals with an intensity not seen at all this year. Belichick made a ton of terrific adjustments in this game, and may have finally found the right offensive line combo in the process.

Lost in the shuffle was a noticeable undercard which might prove critical over the course of the season. During the week, Darrelle Revis seemed to call out Belichick by stating that the Jets, one of his former teams, played a more aggressive style of defense. Revis had been hamstrung in soft zone coverages up to this point, and it seemed to frustrate him. On Sunday night, Revis was in man coverage with A.J. Green all night long, and Patriot Nation finally got to see the better side of Revis.

Even more telling was that Revis left the game in the third quarter with what might have been a hamstring injury. On the very next play, Green was able to shake Logan Ryan and haul in a 17-yard touchdown pass, but that only made the score 34-17 Patriots at the time and proved to be nothing serious. Revis would return later in the game.

The key to the Patriot win, though Revis helped greatly, was the performance of the offensive line. The inside three of Dan Connally and Ryan Wendell at guard and Bryan Stork at center was the biggest positive of the night for the Patriots. They enabled the Patriots to gash the Bengal defense with runs up the middle (the Patriots totaled 152 yards rushing on runs up the middle). It also enabled tackles Nate Solder and Sebastian Vollmer to perform better in pass protection. Brady was able to be comfortable in the pocket all game long, was sacked only once, and found a rhythm with old reliable Gronkowski.

The Bengals were hurting without starting linebacker Vontaze Burfict. But this was still a great job by the Patriots of opening up holes and allowing Ridley and Shane Vereen big gains all game long. Ridley finished with 113 yards rushing on 27 carries. But the best indicator of how great the blocking was was the fact that Vereen, known for his receiving more than his rushing, tallied 90 yards on nine carries. He was incredibly consistent in that his longest rush was 19 yards. But when Vereen nearly gets 100 yards instead of or in addition to Ridley, the run game is at peak proficiency.

One other area that helped the Patriots was their overall intensity. This was displayed best in their reliance on the hurry-up offense. They dictated the tempo of the game on offense for pretty much the entire evening. The Patriots were able to keep the Bengal defense on their heels, showed tremendous push off the line of scrimmage, and Brady looked like he could complete passes without breaking a sweat. The defense was more about execution and a lackluster Bengal offense than it was intensity, but it still played a sound game, and Revis playing man coverage was the best element of the defense for the game.

If you can complain about anything, it would be about finishing drives and penalties. Stephen Gostkowski was a perfect five for five on field goals, but two of them were under 25 yards, meaning that the Patriots knocked on the door of the goal line but could not break down the door. Five field goals for a team that was manhandling the Bengals all night long will catch Belichick's attention this week.

The Patriots finished with 12 penalties for 114 yards. There was one maddening stretch in the second quarter where the Bengals drove the ball on the Patriots aided by three questionable penalties. Alfonzo Dennard was flagged for holding on Mohamed Sanu, but replays showed that he perhaps laid his hand on the back of his jersey instead of grabbing it. On the next play, Dominique Easley was called for a "blindside block" which put the ball at the Patriot 38. Five plays later, Dennard was again called for holding on Sanu, which resembled the previous play on this drive. The Bengals managed only a 23-yard field goal by Mike Nugent.

Brady finished 23 of 35 for 292 yards and a 110.7 passer rating. A 27-yard pass to Gronkowski in the first quarter put Brady over 50,000 passing yards for his career, another milestone to bring up when he enters Canton someday. Gronkowski had six catches for 100 yards, but especially pleasing was that Tim Wright, the man acquired from Tampa Bay for Logan Mankins, caught five passes for 85 yards and a touchdown, making his hay mostly on left seam routes.

To his credit, Andy Dalton's numbers weren't that bad. His passer rating of 117.4 was actually higher than Brady thanks to 15 of 24 passing for 204 yards and two touchdowns. Giovanni Bernard rushed for 62 yards and a 4.8 average per carry. Dalton's top receivers were Green and Sanu, who both hauled in five catches and each caught a touchdown pass.

The Patriots don't usually play well on Sunday nights, but on this Sunday night they caught a Bengals team coming off a bye week which cannot handle the bright lights at all. It formed a good combination for the Patriots to serve notice to the league, and to the rest of the division, and pardon the cliché, that reports of the demise of the Patriots are greatly exaggerated.

This Patriot win was richly satisfying. Belichick and Brady did what they had to do to shut up all the reporters who asked some of the most unbelievable questions all week long. The fan base can rest easy for at least one more week. All is well once again on the Boston Post Road.

This has been going on for over a decade. Have faith, folks.