Frustrating.
That is the word I would use to describe the Patriots' loss to the Bills. Tom Brady inevitably regressed towards the mean after throwing only one pick in four-hundred and forty five throws (read that again) he threw four against the Bills. His short streak of 400+ yard games also ended. If I told you that this would happen before the game, then asked you to predict the scoreline, what would you have said? 20-0 Buffalo? 30-0? Nope, a 3 point loss coming on a last-second field-goal from the Patriots' 5 after a very uncharacteristic mistake from Bill Belichick. The general reactions I have seen so far over twitter and facebook ranged from ridiculous (bashing or hating on Brady) to insane (Bills=Superbowl bound), with a few sane ones (the Bills might be a good team) thrown in. Lets just get the excuses out of the way first. Out of Brady's 4 picks, only one was a truly bad throw, one was the result of Ochocinco getting lazy in his route-running, one hit the receiver in both hands before popping up, and one took a wicked deflection off of a line-mans helmet. Channeling the wise words of Golden State coach Mark Jackson, I say this to Brady: "Tom YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT". Brady still tossed 4 Touchdowns and got excellent contributions from Wes Welker and TE Gronkowski (at one point, these 3 lead all fantasy score boards in this order). Despite playing one of the worst games of his career, and letting Fred Jackson torch them with the run the Patriots should feel pretty good about losing by only 3, I think if they played 9 times out of 10 the Patriots would have hung 50 on them and won all the games, today was the 1. If we know anything about the Patriots and Tom Brady, they will bounce back.
It started off very promising with the Patriots defense forcing early turnovers and the Patriots capitalizing on all of them to jump out to a 21 point lead. But the second half of this game was a disaster by all accounts. Fitzpatrick looked like Joe Montana, constantly tearing the Patriots secondary apart (they need to figure out their corner-back situation quickly). Fred Jackson showed why he was the best running back through 2 weeks of NFL action and the Bills defense did something rarely seen; they rattled the Patriot offense. Add a little bit of luck (Jackson ruled down at the one with 1:45 remaining instead of being given the touchdown, allowing the Bills to get the 'last shot' essentially) and there you go. It really felt like a Madden game gone so wrong you wanted to whip your controller at the TV. We even saw Bill Belichick legitimately fuck up (on twitter I said he did his best Andy Reid impression) by calling a seemingly useless time-out that ensured that Tom Brady would not be on the field for a desperation drive to win it. It is safe to say that there is a lot of room for improvement for this patriots team. Not to be forgotten is Buffalo, all credit must go to the Bills who seem to have finally turned things around and as of me writing this, the Jets are down 14 to the raiders meaning that Buffalo will lead the AFC east after today. The Bills are now going to be noticed and could be 4-0 (they play the Bengals next week) playing host to the Eagles in week 5.
As for the Patriots there really isn't much more to say. Their defense clearly has room to improve and now fans should start getting concerned. There has not been one team that's stood out over the first 3 weeks, and it remains to be seen whether an elite defensive team can emerge to be taken seriously as a contender because picking the 'best' team right now seems impossible. The Patriots better figure something out soon however, check out their next few games: at Oakland, home to the Cowboys and Jets, BYE week, at Pittsburgh, Giants, at Jets. This stretch of games should tell us whether this is just an explosive offensive team that puts up big numbers, or an explosive offensive team that is capable of contending for the Superbowl. Anything over 5-1 in their next 6 weeks will point to the latter.
