Five Takeaways From The Patriots’ 23-14 Win Over the Chargers

The Patriots completed their west coast week with a gritty, come-from-behind 23-14 win over the Chargers on Sunday night. The defense and special teams were superb and covered for the offense, which took three quarters to get rolling before taking over in the fourth. Tom Brady threw for 317 yards and two TDs and Jamie Collins starred for an aggressive, opportunistic defense that was missing Dont’a Hightower. The win sent the Pats to 10-3 and kept them at No. 1 overall in the AFC as they get set to complete their division slate to close out the regular season. Here are our five takeaways from the win

1. Patriots defense built to last – There may have been some worry before the game when the inactive list came out and Hightower was on it. But after the first quarter, the Pats settled in on defense and took over the game on that side of the ball, hardly missing their star linebacker. Collins filled in tremendously as the man with the green dot, piling up eight solo tackles, three for a loss, two sacks on perfectly timed A gap blitzes and two other hits on Chargers’ quarterback Philip Rivers.

Also standing out for the Pats were mid-season acquisitons Akeem Ayers and Jonathan Casillas, defenisve tackle Sealver Siliga in his first game since Week 3, and of course, Darrelle Revis, who erased Chargers’ No. 1 receiver Keenan Allen from existence. The Pats are so deep on that side of the ball, they can afford to face an offense like San Diego’s without guys like Hightower and Chandler Jones and still dominate. It’s a defense built to win in the playoffs.

2. Tough to keep Brady down for 60 minutes – Brady was not himself for the first three quarters, looking rattled and hesitant and making another unfathomable mistake right before halftime with a forced throw in the red zone. The Pats did not make a single first down in the third quarter and seemed doomed to freeze in a one-point deficit for all eternity.

But on the Pats’ first two possessions of the fourth quarter, Brady shook it all off, shortened his dropbacks and generated 10 points that sealed the game, punctuated by a 69-yard catch and run for touchdown by Julian Edelman, the longest of his career. Not that we didn’t know it already but Brady can grind as well as he can shoot off fireworks all over the field. And with good cause, it gets him fired up.

3. Special teams comes through again – The Pats have been excellent on special teams all year. There have been huge returns, incredible coverage and tackles by Matthew Slater and friends and who can forget Chandler Jones’ demonic field goal block and runback for a score back in Week 2 against the Vikings?

On Sunday night, the scintillating special teams play continued with Brandon Bolden, last seen invading the running back rotation with a nifty touchdown run in Green Bay, blocking a Mike Scifres punt at the Chargers’ 28 yard line to set up the Pats’ first touchdown. The Pats were out of sorts at that point following a fumble by Brandon LaFell that was returned for a TD and having to settle for field goals on two red zone trips. But Bolden’s play ignited the Pats, whose defensive awakening coincided almost directly with that play. When you can succeed in two of the three phases it can be enough to win. When you succeed in all three, you’re borderline unbeatable.

4. Balance is key to the offense – Part of the reason why the Patriots fell behind early was their insistence on going away from the running game at bad times, including inside the Chargers’ 5-yard line on their first possession. A 17-play, 89-yard drive that was highlighted by a handful of tough, productive runs by LeGarrette Blount, stalled when offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels called for pass plays on second and third down both from the one-yard line which resulted in an incompletion and a sack.

In the end, the ratio of pass to run was 44-28 and while they got away with it, the Pats are always tougher to stop through the air when they establish even the threat of the run. The offensive line had its problems in this one, never really able to hold ground at the point of attack after that first drive with any real consistency. But that may have been for lack of rhythm to the play calling. Whatever the reason, the Pats are at their best when they are diverse and multiple on offense and that means sticking to the run and staying balanced.

5. NFL officiating is a disaster – Not that you need to be reminded of this, but the crew who worked this game made one of the most jaw-dropping mistakes you’ll see all year. In the third quarter, Rivers fired a throw over the middle to Ladarius Green that was bobbled, then tipped before Brandon Browner blasted Green with a perfectly legal, shoulder to shoulder hit exactly the way the league has explained they want it. The ball wound up in the arms of Devin McCourty, who ran it back for a TD — but the officials wiped the play out by flagging Browner for unnecessary roughness and a helmet-to-helmet hit, even though there was clearly no helmet-to-helmet contact.

Here’s an AP photo of the Browner hit on Green in Patriots-Chargers tonight. pic.twitter.com/2YdKxLoeeS

— Matt Pepin (@mattpep15) December 8, 2014

The flags were thrown at least two seconds after McCourty secured the ball and started his runback and were a complete reaction to Green hitting the deck with such force. Then, three plays later, Chargers’ receiver Malcolm Floyd was flagged for offensive pass interference on a close play down the sideline, a clear makeup call. There’s no rhyme or reason to what’s a penalty, what isn’t and whether the officials are competent enough to enforce the NFL’s tome of a rulebook on a weekly basis. Maybe adding the option for coaches challenges on plays like this one will help.

Brandon Browner said he deliberately led with his shoulder on hit, believes those plays should be reviewable

— shalise manza young (@shalisemyoung) December 8, 2014

Whether or not that’s the answer, the officials should not so consistently be as prevalent in the flow of the game as the players. It’s a problem every week every year.