FOXBORO, MA — After watching all the sacks Drew Bledsoe endured during the first 8 games, it’s hard to believe that it would have been a simple injured thumb that finally would have sidelined him.<\/p>\n
On New England’s third offensive play of the game Bledsoe jammed his right thumb on the helmet of linebacker Sam Rogers on the follow through. Bledsoe called a timeout and went to the sidelines to practice throwing, but had difficulty with his accuracy and left after the next series.<\/p>\n
“My feeling was after throwing on the sidelines that I wasn’t able to throw accurately enough to be effective for our team, compounded by the fact that each time I took a snap the way I was getting hit would only aggravate it,” said Bledsoe after the game. “So I felt the best chance for us to win was to go with John [Friesz]. He’s an experienced veteran quarterback. He came in and made a couple of nice plays that barely got broken up with the exception of one play probably, played pretty well and gave us a chance to win.”<\/p>\n
Bledsoe spent the remainder of the game wearing a cast on his right hand, and said after the game that he had his hand x-rayed but wouldn’t reveal any details.<\/p>\n
John Friesz replaced Bledsoe on New England’s third offensive series, and had a difficult time moving the team down the field. He was even booed by the fans in the 4th quarter who were hoping to get a look at second-year quarterback Michael Bishop who was listed as the team’s emergency quarterback.<\/p>\n
“It is not the first time I’ve been booed,” said Friesz after the game. “I understand, Michael [Bishop] is a real exciting player. I wasn’t doing a lot of good things out there.”<\/p>\n
“Sporadically, things would happen for us. But overall, it wasn’t. It didn’t surprise me, it wasn’t something that offended me, or bothered me or affected me or anything of that nature.”<\/p>\n
Friesz finished the afternoon 11-of-21 for 66 yards passing, but threw an ill-advised interception in the endzone while trying to force a pass into J.R. Redmond who was double covered on the play. New England went from having 1st and goal at the 1-yard line, to squandering a crucial scoring opportunity with the turnover.<\/p>\n
“It is inexcusable,” said Friesz on the interception. “It is a situation that’s partly why I’m supposed to be here. I’m a veteran, I’m supposed to know better and I screwed up. Throw it out of the back of the end zone and go back and go on to the next play.”<\/p>\n
New England went into the locker room at halftime down 10-3, but knotted the game at 10-10 after a 17-yard pass to Troy Brown set up 1st-and-goal at the Buffalo 1-yard line. J.R. Redmond finally ran it in on 4th down and the Patriots found themselves back in the game with 9:00 remaining in the contest.<\/p>\n
The Patriots finally took a 13-10 lead following Adam Vinatieri’s 43-yard field goal with 2:03 left in the game, but New England still had to stop Bills quarterback Doug Flutie who had been held in check throughout most of the game.<\/p>\n
Flutie went right to work on that final drive, and drove the Bills 46-yards on 10 plays which set up Bills kicker Steve Christie’s 48-yard field goal which barely squeaked over the crossbar, and sent the game into overtime.<\/p>\n
New England elected to take the ball in overtime instead of the wind, and were unable to get a first down on their possession. They were forced to punted the ball away to Buffalo, and the Bills began their drive on their own 35-yard line.<\/p>\n
Following a 22-yard pass interference call against Patriots cornerback Ty Law that moved the ball to New England’s 43-yard line, Flutie then completed a 6-yard pass to tight end Jay Riemersma, runningback Shawn Bryson ran for 5 and 15 yards, and Antowain Smith also rushed for 4 yards.<\/p>\n
Steve Christie then came onto the field and kicked a 32-yard field goal which was the game winner, his second in two weeks.<\/p>\n
“Obviously this is a disappointing outcome for us this afternoon,” said Belichick. “Defensively we had a couple of breakdowns at the wrong time, a couple of plays that we should have played a lot better considering the amount of time we spent preparing for them.”<\/p>\n
“But in the heat of the game when the fur flies we just didn’t play as well as we need to play it.”<\/p>\n
The fur has flown all right, and with seven losses along with the loss of Drew Bledsoe, so may have New England’s hopes of salvaging their season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Patriots dropped their 7th game of the 2000 campaign by losing 16-13 in overtime to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. Quarterback Drew Bledsoe went down with an injury to his right thumb early in the first quarter, and gave way to back-up John Friesz who looked shakey during the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[22294],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2000-patriots-season"],"yoast_head":"\n