ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. \u2013 In the AFL days, and in the early 1970s, War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo was known as the \u201cRock Pile\u201d.<\/p>\n
It was called that largely because of the fans, who would bring coolers of beer and hibachis to the game.\u00a0 Into the stadium, not just in the parking lot.\u00a0 Drunk fans would throw bottles and cans of full beer at the players as they left the field.\u00a0 Players kept their helmets on, and hoped that they would catch one of those beers thrown at them so they could enjoy a cold one on the way to the locker room.<\/p>\n
If you have that kind of perspective, Sunday\u2019s 16-10 win by the Patriots at New Era Stadium may have reminded you of those old days of the AFL.<\/p>\n
The Patriots survived a dogged effort by the homestanding Buffalo Bills in front of a raucous crowd in western New York.\u00a0 The Patriots remain undefeated at 4-0, and the defense continues to play at an astounding level.\u00a0 But the Bills\u2019 defense was equal to the task, and if the Bills had an offense that is ready for prime time, they would have won and won easily.<\/p>\n
The Patriot offense, especially the passing game, was almost totally shut down.\u00a0 What won the game for the Patriots was interceptions, quarterback sacks, bad game management by the Buffalo coaches, and a special teams touchdown.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t Tom Brady, it wasn\u2019t Sony Michel, it wasn\u2019t Stephen Gostkowski.\u00a0 You take the win, but the Patriots got out of town both very happy and very lucky.<\/p>\n
Brady had his worst game of his career in a winning role.\u00a0 His quarterback rating was only 45.9, the lowest of his career in a victory.\u00a0 He had only 18 of 39 passing for 150 yards, no touchdowns, and an interception that was perhaps his worst throw of maybe the last 5 years.\u00a0 James White led the Patriots with eight catches for 57 yards, but for most of the game Buffalo had all the Patriot passes smelt out and well, if not perfectly, defended.\u00a0 Michel managed 63 rushing yards on 17 carries, not outstanding but not paltry either.<\/p>\n
Basically, despite playing well enough on defense to win the game, Buffalo did more to lose this game than the Patriots did to win it.\u00a0 Bills Nation has been lamenting this for many years.\u00a0 They seem to play better, but they just can\u2019t beat the Patriots.\u00a0 If the Red Sox could eventually figure out how to beat the Yankees in the postseason, the Bills will eventually win games like this.\u00a0 Sadly for the Buffalo fans, it\u2019s not happening just yet.<\/p>\n
Josh Allen showed flashes of the great quarterback he could be some day, but for much of the game, he was flummoxed by the Patriot defense.\u00a0 He finished with 13 of 28 passing for 153 yards and three interceptions.\u00a0 Most of the numbers he put up came following a Brady end zone interception, and he looked like he was getting into a rhythm until he was knocked out of the game early in the fourth quarter on a helmet to helmet hit by Jonathan Jones.<\/p>\n
The game changed on that Brady interception.\u00a0 Halfway through the second quarter, with the Patriots leading 13-0, the Patriots took over at their five-yard line.\u00a0 Helped by a pass interference call on Tre\u2019Davious White on Phillip Dorsett which netted 27 yards, the Patriots drove all the way to the Buffalo 2-yard line in 15 plays.\u00a0 On third and goal, play 16 turned the entire game around.\u00a0 Brady wanted to hit Josh Gordon with a fade pass in the left corner of the end zone, but he couldn\u2019t get separation.\u00a0 So Brady rolled to his right.\u00a0 He had Jakobi Meyers and Julian Edelman in the right side of the end zone, but Brady missed both and instead hit Micah Hyde in the numbers in the end zone.\u00a0 It was a worse throw than Jarrett Stidham\u2019s pick-six last week.\u00a0 The Bills outscored the Patriots 10-3 the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
Part of the reason the Patriots had a 13-0 lead at that time was a blocked punt that went for a touchdown.\u00a0 Midway through the first quarter, former Patriot punter Corey Bojorquez punted from his 33, but J.C. Jackson broke through and blocked the punt.\u00a0 Matthew Slater picked up the loose ball and ran 11 yards for the score.\u00a0 Despite the Bills looking good on defense in the early going, the Bills found themselves down 13-0.<\/p>\n
Allen threw three interceptions, and his replacement Matt Barkley threw one.\u00a0 Jackson had two of the picks, with Devin McCourty and Jamie Collins one each.\u00a0 Jackson\u2019s second pick midway through the third quarter was actually an incompletion, as the ball was touching the intended receiver, Zay Jones, while he was standing out of bounds before Jackson secured the catch, rendering the play an incomplete pass.\u00a0 But even the replay crew in New York missed it and upheld the call on the field of interception.<\/p>\n
The Bills hurt themselves in the fourth quarter by calling their final timeout early on in the final period.\u00a0 The Bills are lucky that the Patriots didn\u2019t have the power running game to run the clock later and had several chances to pull ahead, but were not able to convert, but not having time outs late in the game hurt them.<\/p>\n
Allen finished with a passer rating of 24.0; Barkley was 9 of 16 for 127 yards and a rating of 56.0.<\/p>\n
The one bright moment of the game for Buffalo was courtesy of Frank Gore.\u00a0 In the second quarter, just shortly after the Brady end zone pick, Gore blasted up the middle for a 41-yard run, which put the future Hall of Famer over 15,000 yards for his career.\u00a0 He joins Emmitt Smith, Walter Payton and Barry Sanders as the only running backs in NFL history to top 15,000 rushing yards for a career.\u00a0 Gore finished with 109 yards rushing and a 6.4 per carry average.\u00a0 He remains a physical marvel at 32 years of age, excelling at an age where most backs of that age are retired.<\/p>\n
The Patriots had better hope that the league doesn\u2019t have a new blueprint on how to stop their offense.\u00a0 The Patriots no longer have Rob Gronkowski, who loved to excel in his former home territory.\u00a0 They were only able to hang on to Antonio Brown for one game.\u00a0 Edelman had sore ribs but was cleared to play, and his lack of production was telling.\u00a0 Gordon, Dorsett and Meyers didn\u2019t make up for that lack of production.\u00a0 Brady could get nothing going all game long.\u00a0 Granted, the Bills have played the Patriots tough over the last few years on defense, and perhaps other teams might not be able to duplicate this.\u00a0 But you the Patriot fan might be just a little bit concerned.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, if Buffalo fans wanted to pelt the Bills with full beer cans at game\u2019s end, shame on them.\u00a0 Sooner or later, the Bills win games like this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sunday\u2019s 16-10 win by the Patriots at New Era Stadium may have reminded you of those old days of the AFL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":25195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2120,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2019-patriots-regular-season","category-patriots-commentary"],"yoast_head":"\n