Bills at Pats
Oops. Forgot to write up the season opener thoughts.
By now, if you care, you've already read about it - the blown pass protection on the first play, leading to a Brady fumble, which the Bills recovered, took 6 yards, and scored a touchdown. Twelve seconds into a game, after receiving a kickoff, and you're down 7-0. Ouch.
It was an ugly game, but one that was fun to watch. After an initial slew of scoring, the Patriots defense finally locks down the Bills. My favorite rookie from last year, Ellis Hobbs, is almost never on screen &emdash; which is a great sign. A cornerback with such great coverage that I think only 2 passes came into his area. I'll give up watching his amusing tackles (watching a tiny cornerback upend large receivers is worth the price of admission) to instead close down one wing of the passing game.
Losman had some amazing luck, with dropped balls and missed snaps just coming right into his hands, but you knew it had to run out. And thankfully, it does, with a Banta-Cain hit and Ty Warren tackle into the end zone for the game winning safety. What an ugly way to win. The Patriots need to shakedown both the offense and their defense for the rest of the season; pulling them out like this is not the path to the Super Bowl.
I'm going to have to pick a new rookie to watch. Obviously, Maroney and Gostkowski are likely picks, but I bet everyone is following them. Willie Andrews looks like he's trying to follow Troy Brown's model of playing every position he can, and he's another Texan, so I could have a rookie theme. I'll have to see.
For some fun stats on the game, check out the Patriots website. Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback appears to have moved from the NFL website to the ESPN Page 2 website, I'll update the sidebar here if I can dig up a reliable link to the column.
