Game Day Thread Official Post Game Thread - #1 Seed Pats beat the Bills

[Keyser Söze]

soaking up the delicious tears on the bills forum.

 

[catent]

keep Harry’s ass glued to the bench or cut him. one of the dumbest ST plays I’ve ever seen

Yet he's added a lot in the running game through his blocking and has caught the ball when it has been thrown his direction.

It was a bad play by Harry but a worse coaching decision, IMO. I think, having seen the first punt, they expected the ball may roll (and therefore be easy to field), so they wanted someone back there to field it to prevent the Bills from downing the ball inside the 5 ... and maybe you're able to break a big return and get positive field position as a result. It appeared Gunner was also back, but positioned much further up the field than Harry, but I'd have to see the replay.

At any rate, the idea makes sense, but why you'd select that person to be Harry instead of someone like Bourne or Meyers is completely beyond me. Harry has no recent live-game experience fielding punts, so why have him do it under extremely adverse circumstances? He was setup to fail. He could have and should have done better but I don't want that one (admittedly, really bad) play to overshadow his generally positive contributions to the team/offense thus far.

As a final side-note, why they haven't thrown him 4-5 goal-line fades/slants/box-outs, or an occasional go-route when Mac is in the game and during a competitive stretch of play, is beyond me. He is extraordinarily successful on a very high percentage of those plays when given the opportunity, and (save for when Hoyer is in the game, late) they rarely give him much of a shot. I get you can't build an offense around one player/type of play, but attempting to manufacture some touches to maximize what seems to be a really strong skillset for contested/50-50 balls feels like it could be a good idea, especially when in the red-area and points are at a premium.

 

[RIpats88]

I think the gameplan was just pure hubris from Bill B. I think they planned to throw but once we were gashing then on the ground in 9-10 man boxes bill just said watch this. And I don't think he respects Josh Allen against our defense.

BUT that being said, I don't get why we couldn't throw more screen passes or short passes.

I just think Bills mentality is "well we beat the Titans with Max throwing 300 yards and all over the field now we gonna beat the bills with just running the ball"

Pats are truly back. Can beat you a million ways

 

[Kasmir]

I'm sure others have already addressed this, but what a classless reply.

The Patriots deserved to win, and did, despite getting absolutely shafted by the officials. That 35 yard field-goal Bass made in the 2nd half should've come from 50 yards, but was bumped 15 yards forward by that atrocious penalty. If Bass kicks that from 15 yards further out, he very likely would've missed. That was as bad of an 'unnecessary roughness' call as I've ever seen.

You pranced around here all week, arrogant and condescending. Once the outcome is actually determined, you resort to excuse-making and moral victory nonsense.

Diggs didn't drop the ball. The pass sailed wide right because of the ... you guessed it, the wind. Allen was good, but far from the messiah out there tonight.
Knox dropped passes? Probably should've caught them, then. If your team doesn't play well, don't be surprised when they lose.
Breida fumbled without being touched? So did Damien Harris and N'Keal Harry. The Brieda fumble is completely wiped out by the Harry punt-return sequence, so that gripe is a non-factor.

Candidly, Bills fans have zero legitimate right to complain about luck/bounces of the football after benefitting on the scoreboard from that atrocious penalty they called on Bryant.

As for Allen's insanity, he went 15-30, 145 yards, 1 TD. He played very well considering the circumstances but was far from perfect. He had throws which were affected by the wind, and clearly Buffalo's offensive approach was limited due to the weather. Credit to Allen, but I don't think he elevated himself to a different plane. With more playing experience and physical maturation, I don't think what Allen did (particularly with the wind at his back) is anything beyond Mac's capabilities in the not-so-distant future.

The only team deserving of victory is the one that scores the most points, which was the Patriots. The Patriots are now 9-4 with a two game and head-to-head advantage over the 7-5 Bills, who now have to play Tampa Bay next. Lol.

Josh Allen nearly threw a pick six to JC Jackson, too.

 

[sb1]

“Let’s not give too much credit to Belichick”

I like McDermott but that’s the first time I’ve heard an NFL coach go out of his way to say the other coach had nothing to do with beating his team. Man he is salty here. LOL

 

[JMC00]

Birdbrain bird beak Nick "Always Wrong" Wright is going to be must see TV this morning..the pin brained pinhead is going to bring a special kind of tender toiletries to the show for sure...

Not sure why that dumbass chiefs fan is running is mouth when his team's offense struggled to score 16 points against the broncos at home

 

[Uncle Rico]

Two things:
- Amazing how much that two-point conversions shaped the final minutes of that game. Bill's Crystal Ball is ... pretty good.
- Didn't Parcells once have a game plan kinda sorta like this, though obviously with more than three passes? I seem to remember early in Bledsoe's career where Tuna felt the team was maybe a little undisciplined or shiny or whatever, and had one game where they were just going to run run run — mostly Marion Butts up the middle.

 

[NashuaPats]

If I was born and raised in Western NY rather than NH, my life probably wouldn’t be much different. My upbringing, family relations, education, career would likely be the same. The only real difference is I would be a Bills fan rather than a Patriots fan and that would suck. Sports fandom isn’t an important part of life, but it does matter. Rather than so much trivial celebrations and happiness, I would have so much frustration and anger. I’m so thankful that I was born and raised where I was and enjoy the schadenfreude of our western neighbors’ tears.

 

[ashley]

Non-contact injuries have a pretty bad track record...but hoping for the best.

He tweeted this last night, seems he avoided a major injury...great news.

 

[50-yard-line]

I posted “Good game” a few pages ago.

Feel like crap.

Diggs drops a game winning TD.
Knox drops multiple first downs.
Breida fumbles a ball where he wasn’t even touched.

They all sucked.

Didn’t deserve to win.

Only one who deserved a W was Allen.

What Allen was doing in that hurricane was insane.

In Diggs' defense, the bomb he dropped blew back onto his upper arms, kind of like the way Bailey punted with his ankle. Balls traveling more than 10 yards aren't going to be high-percentage in that gale.

 

[patsinthesnow]

The bills path to victory is so narrow. They can’t stop the run & they can’t run the ball vs. nickel defenses. Hopefully Phillips is fine & they’ll have Dugger back for the second game to spy Allen.

 

[Pats2000]

The Bills had their chances. This is the first game I truly missed Brady. If Allen could throw in that wind then I'm certain Brady could as well. I still don't understand why Harry was even back there when Gunner is one of the best returners in the league.

The Patriots are really intent on not putting Mac in harms way for whatever reason. I'm ok with that because it's working.

 

[50-yard-line]

I don’t think it was a genius move at all.

It was the only move he had. Folk wasn’t make that kick into that wind.

Then why did McDermott try a field goal in the same direction?

 

[fnordcircle]

youre still not going to completely shut them out especially if theyre a good running team. Id expect a good defense would give up 7-10 points. So 14 is probably slightly over what they should be giving up but really not ‘embarrassing’. It was not a fair question imo. Ages ago this happened more often and people definitely still scored.

Yeah but we hold DCs to a higher standard than in the 40s when nobody could see the chalkboard because the entire team would smoke through every meeting.

 

[Foxypats]

When the schedule first came out, I hated the late bye but all things considered I actually like that they have it now. Get some rest and be fresh again for the home stretch ! Worked out really well, hope Phillip is okay !!

 

[Triumph]

2 guys that were on the brink of not making the club came up huge once again.

Folk and Bolden.

Folk has been money. I have no concerns with him as the Pats kicker. And, Bolden is on pace to have the best season of his 9 year career. He was averaging 5.4 ypc prior to last night. Boldens receiving numbers are already fantastic with a 94% catch rate.

That game had to have been Macs coldest and in conditions not fit for man nor beast.

Does anyone still miss Sony?

 

[ashley]

Some snap counts:

 

[doesntmatter1]

Daniele Kuale #95 was surprisingly good and this game wasn't the first time I've noticed him. Hidden gem.

Without Harry's mistake they probably don't score a single td and the game would've flowed better for us. Outside of that we truly trolled the Bills. At the end of the day we only scored 14 points so the Bills defense wasn't that horrible. They showed they could stop the run if they truly committed to it but they were in disbelief that we weren't going to pass at all. Everyone thought we cared about what direction the wind was blowing lol. Run some more lol. I'm pretty certain the Bills were on the lookout for screens that just never came. Their corners were without a purpose. I doubt the Bills have ever been more frustrated than last night.

 

[Wax Frog]

Some snap counts:

Something's wrong with those stats, I don't see the snap count for this guy. He was my MVP this week

 

[Mack Herron]

I love the smell of first seed in the morning.