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.

A few more weeks like this, and Patriots fans may forget the early season struggles had by New England’s offense.

The Patriots set nine team records and two NFL records in the team’s 59-0 victory over the Tennessee Titans in the snowfall of Gillette Stadium.

Up until this Week 6 game, New England was the only NFL team without a pass over 40 yards or run over 20 — head coach Bill Belichick was sure to point that out to his team prior to Sunday’s game. The message was heard.

With the ball at Tennessee’s 40 yard line, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady dropped back and fired a pass down field, hitting Randy Moss in the end zone for the first of Brady’s five second quarter touchdown passes — an NFL record.

“Had we hit a few more of those in the past — last week, obviously — it’d be a different story, but we’ve got to make those plays when they’re there,” Brady said. “Coach Belichick was on us pretty tough, being the only team to not hit a 40-yard pass play or have a 20-yard run all season. Hopefully we kept him quiet for a week or two.”

“I think we were just sick of hearing him and we just wanted to shut him up,” receiver Wes Welker said with a smile.

Of course, Brady and Welker would not be able to poke fun at Belichick’s criticism had they not delivered big plays on the field.

“I think we were able to do that today a little bit, but it’s something that definitely needs to be a part of our offense,” Welker said.

Five of New England’s eight touchdowns came on plays of 25 yards or more, effectively taking the Red Area problems experienced in Weeks 1 through 5 out of the picture.

“We’ve missed on some of those big plays over the first five games and it seemed like we hit on most of them today,” Belichick said.

New England first got on the board thanks to the legs of Laurence Maroney, who burst through the line for a 45-yard touchdown run in the first quarter. Maroney did not hide his excitement and nor should he have — the former first-round pick was buried on the depth chart this season and only got his shot in the snow due to a first-quarter injury to running back Sammy Morris. Maroney finished the game with 123 yards on 16 carries.

From the start of the second quarter through halftime, it was all Brady, though. Battling an unseasonably early snowfall, Brady performed at 2007 levels, tearing apart Tennessee’s defense en route to an NFL record 45-0 halftime lead.

“Having No. 12 in there and kind of back to his old self — I think he kind of showed it tonight, and under the conditions he played really well,” Welker said.

Brady spread the wealth in the second quarter, tossing five touchdown passes — two to Moss, two to Welker and one to Kevin Faulk. He capped his day with a 9-yard third quarter touchdown pass to Moss before being replaced by rookie backup Brian Hoyer.

Perhaps most surprising about New England’s offensive coming out party was that it occurred on a day when snow and rain fell upon Foxborough. That is, until one looks closer at history. In 2008, with Matt Cassel playing in an injured Brady’s stead, the Patriots defeated eventual NFC Super Bowl representative the Arizona Cardinals 47-7 in the snow of Foxborough. Brady credited Sunday’s pouring-on to the team’s ample time spent practicing in the unfavorable New England weather.

“We’ve always tried to be a good situational team, a good bad weather team and really put a lot of pressure on the defense and today was a lot better,” Brady said.

New England will need to prove over the remainder of the season that this one, snow-filled win against a now (0-6) team was no aberration. The Patriots travel to London, England this week for the team’s game with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before re-cooperating during the Bye Week.

*****

Via the Patriots Media Relations Department:

Team records set by the Patriots

• Most points in a game — 59
• Most points in a half — 45
• Most points in a quarter — 35, 2nd Quarter
• Most total net yards in a game — 619
• Most passing net yards in a game — 426 (tie)
• Most touchdowns in a game — 8 (tie)
• Most passing yards in a half — Tom Brady (345)
• Most passing touchdowns in a half — Tom Brady (5)
• Most passing touchdowns in a game — Tom Brady (6)

NFL records set by the Patriots

• Most touchdown passes in a quarter — Tom Brady (5)
• Largest halftime lead — 45 points (45-0)

How long should it take for QB Tom Brady to return to form? How much longer before he’s excelling on a consistent basis? When does Brady regain the confidence in his reconstructed knee to the point he doesn’t think about it anymore?

 

In years past, it took two full years to be back to normal after ACL and MCL surgery – a year to heal and another year playing on the knee to regain confidence and feel. That’s not the case anymore, with San Diego’s Phillip Rivers tying for the league lead in touchdown passes last year after ACL surgery in January.

 

After five games it seems unlikely that Brady will reach 34 TD passes this year. With his up and down play so far, he’ll have a hard enough time reaching 30 scoring tosses.

 

Brady clearly is frustrated by his inconsistency. For every solid game played (65.6 pct 258 yds TD vs. Bal), Tom put up a stinker (48.9 pct 216 yds Int vs NYJ). For each bounce-back second half (83.9 pct 219 yds 2 TD vs. Buf), Brady couldn’t hit his targets to save his life (35.7 pct 63 yds vs. Den).

 

At this point in his recovery, the knee should be physically fine. Brady moves around in the pocket well and Brady’s passing form should be more consistent. But for now he’s just a little bit off. The deep passes are a little too long and everything else is a little off the numbers.

 

This shouldn’t go on for the rest of the season, but impatience is building within Patriot Nation. They’re waiting for the Brady of old, but don’t know when he’ll show up.

 

A comparison was made earlier this week putting this year side-by-side against Brady’s 2007 five games in. That’s unfair because that ’07 season is arguably the greatest season in NFL history by a quarterback. Only two other seasons can be compared to it: Dan Marino in 1984 and Peyton Manning in 2004. Any other year and it’s not even close.

 

The best way to gauge Brady’s recovery is against his peer, which is Peyton Manning. Last year Manning returned from surgery to remove an infected bursa sac and a follow up procedure to “ensure the complete and swift resolution of the bursal problem.”

 

He got off to a poor start, throwing three touchdowns and four interceptions after three games. Indianapolis was 1-2. The next two games were Manning-esque as he carved Houston and Baltimore for five TDs and just one pick in two wins.

 

At the same point, Brady is off to a better start than Manning. Through five games, Brady has six TDs and just two interceptions compared to Manning’s eight TDs and five ints. Might Manning’s ’08 be a clue to how Brady’s season progresses?

 

Let’s hope, but understand there still might be a couple of setbacks left. After two weeks of encouraging play, Manning completed just 50 percent of his passes and threw two interceptions in a loss to Green Bay. That was followed by a loss to Tennessee where Manning completed a high percentage, but threw two picks along with two scores.

 

From week eight on, the Manning that puts fear into opposing defenses was back. He threw 17 touchdowns and just three interceptions, winning every game.

 

The possibility of Brady regaining his groove soon looks good. Tennessee has the 31^st-ranked pass defense and Tampa Bay isn’t much better at 21^st, while allowing 12 TD passes, third worst in the league.

 

Sweeping the second half of the schedule is asking too much. New Orleans, two games against Miami, and the highly anticipated rematch with the Jets, are four games that are far from automatic.

 

But hopefully by the time the Patriots return to action after the bye, we will see the Brady we’re used to.

 

Printed from www.randolphc.com. Any questions or comments please send to talktome@randolphc.com.

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.

Ravens veteran linebacker Ray Lewis takes umbrage with the personal foul penalties against Baltimore in the team’s 27-21 loss to New England.

Leading 10-7 in the second quarter, New England faced what looked like a 3rd & 10 on Baltimore’s 43 yard line after a 1-yard completion to Sammy Morris. But a little yellow flag on the field begged to differ. The Ravens were penalized 15 yards for a personal foul of roughing the passer.

The penalty moved the Patriots up to the 27 yard line. A 15-yard pass to Wes Welker and 12-yard run by Morris later, and the Patriots were taking a 17-7 lead into halftime.

But it didn’t stop there — Baltimore was flagged multiple times for ticky-tack personal fouls. After game, Lewis was looking for some equality.

“Every man puts his pants on the same way. I’ve got kids just like Brady’s got kids, every man has kids,” Lewis said. “Treat him with that same respect.”

“It’s embarrassing to even keep a game going with momentum like that. After we go 3 and out, we stop them and then we see a flag for a personal foul? And Brady’s laughing? That ain’t no personal foul if you still smiling,” Lewis said.

On a “Brady Rule” penalty called on Baltimore, Brady pumped his fist after he seeing the flag. That would have riled me up, too.

Video found on Glenn Clark’s blog over at WNST.net, via Twitter.

Although the score was close for much of the game, it never seemed that way from watching the Patriots and Falcons square off in a 26-10 victory for New England.

Positive Thoughts On The Game

• New England offered a more balanced attack this week, with 39 rushing attempts to the 42 passes attempted by Tom Brady. With Fred Taylor getting the bulk of the carries, he rushed for 105 yards and a first half touchdown. From a tactical standpoint, it’s amazing what the threat of a serious running game can do for a play-action pass.
• A drastic cut-down in penalties, as the Patriots were flagged on just two plays compared to the 11 penalties taken in the 16-9 loss to the New York Jets in Week 2.
• Brady’s completion percentage rose a little over 10-percent from Week 2 to Week 3, as he completed 25-of-42 passes for 277 yards and one touchdown.
• With Wes Welker inactive again, Randy Moss turned in a markedly better performance — catching 10 balls for 116 yards. Moss made some catches only he makes along the sideline to help sustain New England’s momentum.
• Vince Wilfork left the game due to injury, but it appeared that rookie DL Myron Pryor filled in admirably. I’d have to watch the game again to see exactly how he was used, but I did see him bat down a pass in a crucial situation.
• The defense all but eliminated TE Tony Gonzalez from Atlanta’s attack, limiting him to one catch for 16 yards. It was tough for Atlanta to gain any momentum, as the Patriots nearly doubled the Falcons time of possession — 39:49 to 20:11.
• New England was 8-for-18 on 3rd down attempts and 3-for-3 on 4th down conversion attempts, including a ballsy 4th & 1 from the team’s own 24 yard line.
• In his post game press conference, Brady said that head coach Bill Belichick has a hand in every play the team calls. Interesting to note.

Negative Thoughts On The Game

• Four trips into the Red Area for New England yielded just one touchdown. The good news is that Stephen Gostkowski is really good at hitting chip shot field goals.
• In those four Red Area trips in which the Patriots settled for field goals, New England passed the ball a total of 9 times (2, 3, 2, 2). The lone successful Red Area venture came on back-to-back Fred Taylor runs — for 6- and 8-yards, the latter putting six points on the board.
• On Special Teams, the Patriots didn’t do all that much in the return game and allowed one lengthy return on a kickoff.
• Dropped passes. Sure, Brady overthrew some targets today, but dropped passes seemed to get to him in the first half.
• Joey Galloway has shown a lack of awareness on the field, at times. His first quarter missed touchdown came down to him catching the ball with his feet out of bounds. Some of the great touchdown catches in Patriots history came with the receiver being aware of where he is on the field and working some acrobatics to get two feet in bounds. That said, Galloway did understand the situation he was in when making a third quarter catch and diving for extra yardage. It gave New England a 4th & inches from its own 24 yard line. Because of his extra effort, the Patriots felt comfortable in going for it one fourth down. The first down was converted and the drive continued on for a total of 16 plays.
• Not surprising, but Laurence Maroney left the game with a thigh injury and did not return. It allowed Taylor to get in a groove running the ball, but did nothing to ease the minds of Patriots fans hoping Maroney could turn this apparent bust of a first round draft pick into a serviceable player that lasts an entire season.

Oh, And Just One More Thing…
Did anyone catch a glimpse of Falcons head coach Mike Smith? Doesn’t he look like comedian Steve Martin? …The answer is yes.

Let this video breathe a little:

The Patriots offense was virtually shut down by the New York Jets. QB Tom Brady was unable to get the offense into the endzone and was constantly rushed by a relentless New York blitz. It got people saying the Jets had the blueprint for beating the Patriots and with the rest of the league as witnesses, every opponent will follow suit.

 

Don’t believe it. This blueprint talk is garbage. It was the same thing people were saying after the Super Bowl XLII loss to the New York Giants. If this blueprint talk was true, then New England shouldn’t had won eleven games last year without Brady.

 

There are three reasons for why there isn’t a universal blueprint for beating the Patriots:

 

Philosophy – Rex Ryan is the rookie head coach of the Jets that cultivated his defense from his days with the Baltimore Ravens. Rex has a twin brother, Rob, who was the defensive coordinator of the Oakland Raiders. Rex believes in a 3-4 while Rob operated a 4-3.

 

Despite the relationship, the two brothers don’t share the same philosophy. And within the fraternity of coaches, the philosophies are as different as the coaches who teach the systems.

 

Every defense is as unique as the fingerprints of the architects that designed them. Even when they studied under a coach, they will make changes to the approach to make it their own. Former Philadelphia defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, who passed away this off-season, lives on through Sean McDermott. But McDermott, while running a lot of the plays taught to him by Johnson, made changes and adjustments to the defense to make the Eagles defense unique.

 

Take Sunday’s opponent, Atlanta, for instance. They might believe in letting the front four rush the passer while covering the secondary in a zone defense. With DEs John Abraham and Kroy Bierman, the Falcons have the ability to create pressure without blitzing, or at least not blitzing as much as the Jets did last week.

 

The Falcons watched how the Jets attacked on defense, and Atlanta might be so impressed by the performance that they incorporate some of what New York did last week. But defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder won’t copy exactly what the Jets did. That won’t happen. He has his philosophy that he believes in and he will stick with it.

 

Believing in the blueprint theory would be like former head coach Tony Dungy switching from his Tampa-2 defense to blitzing almost two dozen times. It never happened before and no coach would make similar radical changes like that from week to week.

 

System – The Jets play a 3-4 defensive alignment. And year after year, it seems another team switches from a 4-3 to a 3-4. But there still is a majority of teams playing a 4-3 front. Remaining on the Patriots schedule are four teams that play a 3-4 defense: Baltimore, Denver, Miami, and the Jets.

 

A 4-3 can be blitz-heavy, but to do it like a 3-4 would involve a little more creativity by substituting players frequently and using a lot of zone blitz principles. The substitutions become clues, reducing the element of surprise.

 

A 3-4 can better mimic what the Jets did, but it takes more than just running the same blitzes. The execution of the plays makes all the difference.

 

Players – Gang Green has a pair of safetys (Kerry Rhodes and Jim Leonhard) that are very good blitzers. ILB Bart Scott is excellent coming from any direction. Behind them are cornerbacks they trust in one-on-one situations (Darrell Revis and Lito Sheppard). Not every team has all those elements on their defense.

 

Any 3-4 defense can get their hands on the Jets playbook and run the plays as scripted, but they won’t always execute the plays as effectively because of the ability of the individuals running the plays.

 

The method isn’t as important as the objective, which is to cause pressure. There’s hundreds of ways to rush the passer. Overload blitzes worked well for the Jets, but other teams can get the job done with line stunts, corner blitzes, or with just the down linemen, if they’re talented enough.

 

Throughout the league there are 32 blueprints for playing defense. As for a universal blueprint to beat the Patriots or any team, it doesn’t exist.

 

As taken from www.randolphc.com. Any questions or comments can be sent to talktome@randolphc.com.

Guess the sky isn’t falling all that much.

New England Patriots fans were dealt a blow on Sunday, as the team lost its first game of the season in Week 2 to the New York Jets. The Patriots offense stalled, especially in the second half, and failed to register a touchdown in the 16-9 loss.

But Hall of Fame quarterback and ESPN analyst Steve Young said on Monday that he believes New England’s coaching staff will get any issues sorted out.

“The Patriots are the best organization in football, they’re well coached, they have great players — Tom Brady is the best in the game. Don’t panic, alright. It’s good to have a little learning curve each year to make sure you stay honest,” Young said. “I think this is the team to beat in the NFL. I do believe that there’s some transitions that they got to take care of, players coming and going.

“(Richard) Seymour can’t just leave and it doesn’t matter. These kind of things need to kind of find their way,” Young said.

He also cautioned that if the Patriots continue to fail to protect Brady against the pass rush in the coming weeks, then it will be something to worry about.

Young also took a moment to promote the website JCP.com/fans, where football fans can vote for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And I’m providing the link here, because I’m nice like that.

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.