Patriots Report Card: Week 17 vs. Buffalo

Sunday was the last day of school at Patriots High and the pupils knew it. The whole 17-9 loss to the Buffalo Bills in the Pats’ regular season finale had the feel of senior skip day. Tom Brady played only the first half, Rob Gronkowski was a healthy scratch and most of the afternoon (the second half especially) felt like the second or third preseason game during a cold snap.

No one got hurt (except maybe Bill Belichick) and the No. 1 seeded Pats are now primed to get some rest, heal up any lingering bumps and bruises and maybe even do a little business while they enjoy the bye week before getting back after it on Jan. 10 at Gillette Stadium. So with that, let’s get into this week’s report card, broadly defined as it is. In honor of Brandon Spikes, who made his return to Foxborough for this game (and definitely knows some stuff about taking a skip day), here he is with a pretty artistic portrayal of how Pats’ fans should feel headed into the postseason.

OVERALL GRADE: COFFENSE

– It seemed pretty silly to think for even a second that the Pats could use this game as some sort of glorified practice session for their struggling offense with Julian Edelman, Sebastian Vollmer, Dan Connolly and Gronk all sidelined. To that end, this was a very ugly day for pretty much everyone involved.

Since there’s no real way to fairly judge/grade the offense beyond just tossing out words like gross and painful and bleccchhh, here’s a quick recap of the day’s events.

– It seemed like Brandon LaFell was playing the Edelman role and Brian Tyms was playing the LaFell role which left Danny Amendola stuck playing the Danny Amendola role (4 catches, 24 yards). This was the second week in a row Amendola had his helmet ripped off though, so he is getting noticed more consistently on offense in at least one way.

– LeGarrette Blount ripped off a 34-yard run, proving once again that if he can get to the line of scrimmage and find a crease quick enough, he’s a tank who no defensive back wants to get anywhere near once he gets a head of steam. Jonas Gray sat out with an ankle injury but watching Blount do his thing reinforced the idea that he and Gray are excellent complements to each other.

– Watching poor Josh Kline flailing his arms in an attempt to get just a piece of his man while getting run over was kind of sad. You don’t often see guys so overwhelmed in such painstaking detail, and in slow motion too.

– That is, unless their name rhymes with Schmarcus Schcannon. It is absolutely mystifying why he is even allowed in the stadium on a weekly basis let alone given a uniform and a helmet (or a contract extension). If you are hoping that Kline isn’t forced into action come next Saturday’s playoff game, you’d better pray that Cannon isn’t either. He makes Nate Solder look like Jonathan Ogden/Walter Jones/Orlando Pace/pick any all-time left tackle.

They snapped it, Marcus, but what were you doing? #nofine http://t.co/EZfe3f4rpE

— Michael Giardi (@MikeGiardi) December 29, 2014

– Jimmy Garoppolo saw his first extended action and should be commended for not leaving Foxborough in a full body cast thanks to the performances of Cannon and friends. Clearly, he’s nowhere near ready to play with the big boys on any kind of regular basis which was discernable even with the spare parts offensive line. But he did show some solid attributes — toughness and an innate ability to move both in and out of the pocket chief among them. Pro Football Focus had him pressured on 14 of his 22 dropbacks which makes his 90 yards passing on 17 attempts look slightly better than it actually is.

That’s about it. Nine points is lousy, sure, but the Bills have a good defense and it was senior skip day. Hence, a bad grade… but it’s on a curve. GRADE: D

DEFENSE – On one hand, the Pats’ starting D (granted, without Dont’a Hightower, Brandon Browner and Kyle Arrington) let the Bills march right down the field twice in the first half, with a 43-yard pass allowed by Darrelle Revis, a breakdown that resulted in a TD pass leaving Devin McCourty and Jamie Collins staring at each other and shaking their heads and a 13-play, 80-yard drive the high(low)lights.

On the other, once again, the defense tightened up in the second half and has now allowed one touchdown and 22 total points after halftime in its last seven games. Even the JVs kept up the second half dominance and held up the entire unit’s end of the bargain.

As far as big plays were concerned, Collins had his hand in yet another one, posting a sack, forced fumble and fumble recovery trifecta on a tremendous hustle play. Akeem Ayers, now pretty much on sub rusher duty only, also had another sack, adding to his credentials as one of the Pats’ best, most valuable in-season acquisitions ever.

Terrific individual effort by Jamie Collins (not so much by RB CJ Spiller, who stopped blocking) on strip sack and recovery.

— Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) December 28, 2014

Akeem Ayers with another sack. Patriots should try to use him more in the playoffs.

— Doug Kyed (@DougKyedNESN) December 28, 2014

At the end of the day, we didn’t really need this game to learn anything new about the defense. Revis, Hightower and the depth of the defensive line remain the keys headed into the playoffs, with Collins, McCourty and Browner’s contributions also crucial. Teams are going to have to get out to big leads in the first half if they want to beat the Patriots given the second half performances for the past two months.

As has been noted time and time again this season, this is the best Patriots’ defense in years. With the playoffs finally on the horizon, it has the chance to be one of the best Patriots’ defenses in history. They know it. We know it. All that’s left is to play the games. When that time comes, you have to like their chances. GRADE: B

SPECIAL TEAMS/COACHING – As was the case everywhere, the coverage teams were a little less sharp than usual thanks to the last day of school, allowing a 49-yard return to the well-traveled Marcus Thigpen. But Stephen Gostkowski drilled three more field goals and Amendola, who is really shining in the return game, ran one punt back 26 yards and was barely an inch away from breaking it. I suppose you could complain about this being the first game in a month without a blocked kick but that’s about it. The NFL’s best special teams remain intact headed into the postseason.

As for the coaching, game plans and in-game decision making don’t really matter in games like this one but protecting one of your most indispensable players certainly does. Bill Belichick included Gronk on the inactive list despite no injury issues to speak of and it was instantly one of the best decisions he’s made all year. If the offense has appeared off or slow for stretches the past couple weeks, it would be dead on arrival come next Saturday without Gronk. If he’d played even just a series or two on senior skip day and gotten hurt, that would have been worthy of some merciless criticism.

Could he have gotten Brady out of the game a little sooner? Sure. You could say that about any number of players. But given the amount of playoff games Gronk has either missed or served as a decoy over the past three years, giving him special treatment in a meaningless game makes a lot of sense.

And that’s that. Really, the only point of these exercises is to emerge unscathed and in good health. It’s sort of annoying that the Pats lost their first home game in two years (although the Bills and their official Twitter account made sure that annoying turned into hilarious super quick). But seeing as how everyone appears fine headed into the bye week, this week – tough to watch as it was – ultimately goes down as a success. GRADES: SPECIAL TEAMS: B+, COACHING: A