That old connection of which Patriots fans grew so fond in 2007 returned on Sunday to propel New England to a 27-17 win over the Miami Dolphins.
Tom Brady hooked up with Randy Moss on two key plays — both resulting in a touchdown by the end of each respective drive.
Midway through the first quarter, Moss streaked down the right sideline. Brady lofted a pass toward Moss, who plucked the ball out of the air with his right hand. Defensive back Vontae Davis, who was stride-for-stride with Moss, brought him down at the 1 yard line.
Laurence Maroney then rushed the ball in with ease, giving the Patriots a 7-3 lead at the time.
On the opening drive of the second half, Miami methodically worked the ball downfield, scoring on a 1-yard touchdown pass by Ronnie Brown out of the Wildcat formation. The score put the Dolphins up 17-16, with momentum building in their favor after New England settled for three second-quarter field goals.
Brady and Moss slowed that momentum on the ensuing drive.
Facing 3rd & 1 from their own 29 yard line, Brady hit Moss on a short crossing pattern. With Davis right on his heels, Moss stiff armed the Miami rookie and broke away by running with high knees to avoid getting tripped up. He sprinted 71 yards down the sideline for a touchdown, and caught the two-point conversion to put New England up 24-17.
“You get eleven guys working together, then anything’s possible,” Moss said in a short press conference following the 27-17 win. “That’s what we try to do here is execute on offense. Everybody did everything right on that play, and you see the results.”
Moss finished the game with six receptions for 147 yards and the lone touchdown. It was Brady who surpassed Drew Bledsoe for the most 300-yard passing games in franchise history with 27. He finished the day 25-of-37 for 332 yards, one touchdown and an interception.
The win gives the Patriots a (6-2) record, as well as the all important division win against Miami. Remember, it was just last year that New England was kept out of the playoffs due to an in-division tiebreaker.
“It’s a big division win,” head coach Bill Belichick said. “Miami’s (3-0) in the division coming into this game, so that was a huge win for us.”
Grinding out a tough win like this comes at the right time for this club, which faces Indianapolis, the New York Jets and high-scoring New Orleans in each of the next three weeks.
“This is an important time of year. November comes around and your team pretty much is what it is,” Brady said. “We’ve got a pretty tough stretch here in November, so it was good to get off to a great start.”
Brady said that, at this point in the season, what you see on the field is what the Patriots offense and defense will be. We will find out in the coming weeks if that is enough to beat the best teams in football.
(Getty Images)
All along, the jumper cables for New England’s Red Zone offense was a QB sneak. How could we have been so blind?
Scoring in the Red Zone has been one of the biggest problems for the New England Patriots offense in the first few weeks of the 2009 season.
Despite leading opponents in nearly every major offensive category, the Patriots have ground to a halt when moving inside an opponent’s 20 yard line. And it looked like in Week 4 against Baltimore the offense was starting right where it left off.
On the opening kick, Eric Alexander forced a fumble, which was recovered by Brandon McGowan. New England’s offense was facing its biggest issue on the first play from scrimmage — inside Baltimore’s 15 yard line. But an incomplete pass, failed rushing attempt and sack quickly put an end to the drive and quarterback Tom Brady’s hopes of starting the game on a positive note.
But New England was undeterred. Receiver Randy Moss said after the game that the offensive unit believed a lack of execution was to blame for its struggles.
“We put a point of emphasis of just going out there and executing, because we’ve been shooting our own selves in the toes,” Moss said.
Trailing 7-3 later in the first quarter, facing a long 4th & 1 inside the Ravens 5 yard line, New England lined up to go for it. Had the play not worked, the worst that would have happened would be Baltimore starting its drive with bad field position.
So, the Patriots lined up in a jumbo formation, and ended running the same play as that 4th & inches from its own 24 in Week 3 — Brady handed the ball off to Sammy Morris, who was lined up as a fullback. Morris got the first down with ease.
A false start on the ensuing play pushed New England back five yards. Brady then rushed for five on a bootleg, and punched it in on a quarterback sneak.
“I think Tommy Boy started it off with that quarterback sneak on that first touchdown,” Moss said of the further success had in the Red Zone.
“It was something that (Bill Belichick) thought we could try to sneak it,” Brady said. “Head to head with Ray Lewis, I certainly wasn’t thinking that going to bed last night (was something) I was looking forward to today. But, it came up and we scored.”
The Patriots would go on to score twice more from inside Baltimore’s 20 — on a Morris 12-yard run and Moss 15-yard reception.
Sure, New England settled for a field goal on its final scoring drive in the fourth quarter, but the Baltimore defense is no slouch.
“You got to earn everything off them and there were some opportunities out there that we took advantage of, and ones we didn’t take advantage of, which is why it was pretty close at the end,” Brady said.
Close, but in New England’s favor to the tune of 27-21. And all because the offense finally showed cohesion in the Red Zone.
The New England Patriots could not rekindle the magic of its Monday night come-from-behind victory over the Buffalo Bills, losing 16-9 to the New York Jets on Sunday.
“We had our moments. I mean, obviously it was a competitive game, but we just didn’t make enough plays to win,” head coach Bill Belichick said. “That starts with me and goes for everybody that was involved in the game — the players, assistant coaches — just collectively we just didn’t do a good enough job. That’s all there is to it.”
New England struggled offensively, not once reaching the end zone, settling for three field goals in the first half and not scoring in the final two quarters.
“We’re not really firing on all cylinders are right now, and we’ve got to identify where the issues are and try to correct them,” quarterback Tom Brady said. “It’s a different group, it’s a different year, it’s different defenses — it’s a lot of different things, so we’re trying to execute better than we did today.”
The Patriots did not score a passing touchdown until the fourth quarter of its Week 1 game against Buffalo. This, from the quarterback who set the single-season touchdown passing record in 2007 with 50. But a 2008 season-long knee injury appears to have slowed down Brady and this offense.
He was not pleased with the team’s failings in trying to score a touchdown against New York.
“To not get the ball in the end zone, that’s unacceptable. You’re not going to win any games if you don’t get the ball in the end zone,” Brady said. “We did the same thing last week until five minutes left in the game, so we’ve got to do a better job throwing the ball down there (in) tight quarters. It puts too much pressure on the defense when you don’t score a touchdown.”
The quarterback touched on his lack of accuracy and issues with reading the defense as areas on which he must improve in order to get the offense going. Brady finished the day 23-of-47 passing for 216 yards and one interception. His completion percentage was below 50-percent for the first time since a 2007 game against the Baltimore Ravens. The defensive coordinator of that Ravens team was current Jets head coach Rex Ryan.
Despite all the problems the offense had, there was still an opportunity for Brady to lead a comeback with 1:48 remaining in the game.
But, trailing by seven points, New England could not get a sustained drive going on the final push. A holding penalty and incomplete passes were the final nails in the coffin. On fourth and ten, Brady’s pass intended for Joey Galloway was knocked away by Dwight Lowery.
“We had a chance there, we just didn’t execute well during that two-minute possession. It’s something we’ve been good at, but the Jets were better at it today than we were,” Brady said.
Concerning the lack of offensive production in terms of points, receiver Randy Moss put the onus on a lack of execution and great team defense from the Jets.
“We didn’t execute, I think at times we stalled. We kept going backward instead of going forward,” Moss said. “You’ve got to give credit to the Jets. I mean, there’s no sugarcoating it or trying to feel sorry for yourself. They won the game. They beat us. That’s it.”
Moss was held to four receptions for 24 yards in the loss. New York corner back Darrelle Revis was in coverage on Moss throughout the day, but after the game the Patriots receiver refused to call him a “shutdown” corner.
“All week he’s talking about how he’s a shutdown corner, but there’s really no shutdown corners in the league, because they have help for most of the game,” Moss said. “I probably could play corner if I had (Brandon) Meriweather over the top for the whole game — I think I could be a shutdown corner. You’ve got to give credit when its due, I mean I’m not taking anything away from them. Their whole defense — secondary, d-linemen, linebackers included — made plays and we didn’t get things done. You’ve got to give credit when its due, and they did a hell of a job today.”
Rookie Julian Edelman, a college quarterback converted to receiver, took the place of the inactive Wes Welker in many of New England’s offensive sets. He finished the day with eight receptions and 98 yards receiving, both tops on the team.
New England hosts the Atlanta Falcons next week, a team that beat Carolina 28-20 in Week 2.
Trailing 24-13 with 5:32 left in the season opener, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady showed little concern for defeat. At the end of those 5:32 minutes, New England had a 25-24 victory in hand.
Receiver Randy Moss, the man with 12 receptions and 141 receiving yards in the comeback victory, described the type of confidence Brady brought into the huddle.
“I can remember it was, I want to say, 5:32 left in the game and you see Tom coming off the sideline and he comes in the huddle talking about how we’re going to in this game,” Moss said. “And when you have a guy like that saying positive things and then going out there to make it happen, you’ve got to have your hopes high.”
Brady methodically worked down the field, finishing off that opening drive with an 18-yard touchdown pass to Benjamin Watson. The team failed to convert the two-point attempt and trailed 24-19 with 2:06 remaining.
New England retained all three of its second-half timeouts, so it elected to kickoff rather than attempt an onside kick.
But Buffalo return man Leodis McKelvin failed to practice an understanding of situational football, taking the kick out of the end zone instead of killing time down to the two-minute warning and downing it for a touchback — he brought the ball out. Upon being met by Brandon Meriweather, he had the ball stripped from his arms by Pierre Woods as the safety held him up.
Kicker Stephen Gostkowski came out of the pile with the football. Yes, the kicker fought off Bills special teamers.
As if there was any doubt New England would get into the end zone, Brady hit Watson again on a play mirroring the first touchdown, putting the Patriots up 25-24. A failed two-point conversion left the Patriots fending off a Buffalo surge for the final 50 seconds of the game.
In that final possession, Bills quarterback Trent Edwards was sacked twice — once by prodigal son Tully Banta-Cain and once by preseason acquisition Derrick Burgess.
This game proved yet again that Buffalo loses games it should win, while New England wins game it should lose. And the turnaround started when Tom Brady entered the huddle with 5:32 remaining.
OK, now I’m sold.
Since the end of the regular season I’ve been waiting for the Patriots to get a rush linebacker I could believe in. Whether it was a rookie day one draft pick, a free agent, or by trade, I wanted someone that could get to the quarterback better than Mike Vrabel did in 2008. His trade to Kansas City made the need urgent.
I had been hoping, praying, begging, pleading, making blood sacrifices, and negotiating with the Devil (my soul for eternity was asking too much) that sometime, somehow, a DE/OLB would join the Patriots and bring teeth to a pass rush that had just 31 sacks last season.
By finally completing a trade they’ve discussed with Oakland since the NFL Draft for DE Derrick Burgess, I finally believe the Patriots are a Super Bowl-caliber team.
This was supposed to be about my night at the training camp practice inside Gillette Stadium. A synopsis: players ran, caught, blocked, and did other football things, the end.
The Burgess trade made a pony show training camp practice practically insignificant.
A quick look at Burgess and his career might not generate much of a reaction. In six seasons (one season lasted on game, so I’m not counting it against him) Derrick had two double-digit sack seasons, both with the Raiders (16 in 2005 and 11 in 2006). The other four years combined he averaged just five sacks.
Overall, in 84 games, the soon to be 31-year-old Burgess has 47 sacks, a little better than one every two games. Stretch that average through 16 games, and that’s just about nine sacks.
The beauty of Burgess coming to New England is he doesn’t have to be outstanding. If he produces at his career average, that’s all the Patriots need from him.
For the sake of the argument, let’s say the Patriots pass rush this year matches 2008’s production of 31 sacks without Derrick’s contribution. As for Burgess, he bags the QB nine times. Add those two numbers together and you get 40 sacks, a respectable pass rush total.
Of the top five defenses in the league last year, four of them were in the top 10 in sacks. Nine of the top 10 sacking teams were in the playoffs. To be in the top 10 in sacks last year, all it took was 35 sacks.
Are sacks overrated? Probably. With Atlanta, Baltimore, and Arizona in the playoffs while being out of the top ten in sacks, a great point is made. But Arizona played in the NFC West (an easy as cake division – the Cardinals went 6-0 against a trio of teams with a combined record of 13-35), while Atlanta and Baltimore have productive pass rushers (Falcons’ John Abraham with 16.5 and Ravens’ Terrell Suggs with eight).
The sack total isn’t as important as the pressures it generates. As long as the opposing quarterback doesn’t feel comfortable, the pass rush is doing its job. With a consistent pass rush, quarterbacks won’t carve the secondary for 27 touchdowns, second most allowed in 2008.
As much as I want the holdovers to succeed, none has proven to be capable of getting to the quarterback quickly. Not Pierre Woods or Shawn Crable. Burgess has done it before and done so at a decent rate. Head coach Bill Belichick and the coaching staff often gets the most out of their players.
If Burgess can be half of what Randy Moss became after being traded from Oakland to New England, the Patriots got a heck of a player and another steal of a disgruntled Raider.
Burgess was holding out from Oakland’s training camp, hoping to get traded to a contender. He got his wish. I dearly wanted a pass rusher I could believe in. I got my wish. Now I can have championship dreams. Hopefully Burgess is having the same dreams.
Questions? Comments? send to talktome@randolphc.com
