Unconventional Preview: Patriots will have reinforcements—and revenge—against Bills
In Week 4 loss to Buffalo, Tom Brady didn't play, and Gronk wasn't yet himself. They're back at full power now.
COMMENTARY
Welcome to Season 5, Episode 8 of the Unconventional Preview, a serious-but-lighthearted, occasionally nostalgia-tinted look at the Patriots’ weekly matchup that runs right here every weekend.
During this extraordinary decade-and-a-half run of the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick Patriots, there haven’t been many occasions in which the team ran into what I’d call an in-season revenge game. I know, goofy theory, but let me explain. An in-season revenge game is a matchup during the regular-season portion of the schedule that serves as a chance to deliver some comeuppance for a previous slight or defeat early in the season.
Just based on the fundamental schedule structure of the NFL, there aren’t going to be too many games that fit this criteria for the Patriots. It would have to come against a division opponent — which currently narrows the field to the Jets, Dolphins and Bills. And it would have to come against a team that stuck it to the Patriots somehow earlier in the season — a fairly rare occasion for the Jets, Dolphins, and Bills alike over the last 16 seasons.
The most notable occasion that this happened came during the 2003 season, with the bookend 31-0 games (a loss in the opener, a win in the finale) against Lawyer Milloy’s Bills. More recently, there was 2010, when a 28-14 loss to the Jets in Week 2 was avenged with a 45-3 win in Week 13. (We’ll pretend the Jets didn’t avenge the Patriots’ vengeance in the playoffs a few weeks later.) There have been others — in 2014, the Patriots lost their opener to the Dolphins (33-20), then got pay back in Week 15 (41-13). Like ’03, that season ended rather well.
The Patriots certainly have an in-season revenge game now. The Bills beat the Patriots in Week 4, 16-0, roughing up overmatched rookie quarterback Jacoby Brissett the moment he stepped on the field, almost literally. The Bills tried to intimidate Brissett from the get-go, getting in his face as he jogged along the sidelines during the pregame and accusing him of walking through their warmup.
I’d say it was an effective strategy given how much Brissett struggled once the game began, but I doubt any actual strategy was involved. It was just the Bills taking on the persona of their loudmouth coach, Rex Ryan. Payback comes on Sunday. I imagine when it’s over, the Bills will remember this pregame warmup as the peak of their performance.
Kick it off, Gostkowski, and let’s get this thing started …
THREE PLAYERS I’LL BE WATCHING NOT NAMED TOM BR …
Wait, one quick thing on No. 12. See this?
Tom Brady is 11-0 in October starts since 2014 with 33 TD and 1 INT. His 47 wins in October is most of any QB in NFL history.
— Gil Brandt (@Gil_Brandt) October 28, 2016
Holy cow. A 33-1 TD/INT ratio? Have the other teams had defensive backs on the field? That’s nuts even by his standards. OK, let’s try it again.
THREE PLAYERS I’LL BE WATCHING NOT NAMED TOM BRADY
Tyrod Taylor: The Bills, understandably giddy at having a promising quarterback after so many years of losses and Losmans, rewarded the 27-year-old Taylor with a six-year, $92 million contract extension, including a $9.5 million guarantee for this season. Even with that incentive-laden deal, it’s a heck of a financial layout for a quarterback who had started 14 games — all last season — in five NFL seasons, with seven wins to his credit. But Taylor has looked like a keeper this season, leading the Bills to four straight wins after an 0-2 start. He was often outstanding in the Bills’ win over the Patriots in Week 4, completing 27 of 39 passes for 271 yards and a touchdown, while picking up another 28 yards on five carries. And he has two other stellar games in which his quarterback rating was over 110. A 28-25 loss to the mediocre Dolphins was an unexpected setback for the Bills coming into this week’s rematch, but after what they saw from Taylor a month ago, the Patriots know they’d better not take him lightly.
James White: Let’s admit it if we haven’t already: The Patriots asked way too much of him in the AFC Championship Game last year, targeting the then-second-year running back an astounding 16 times in their loss to the Broncos. (He caught just five.) Though that would still be a crazy number of targets for a running back, especially given the stakes, he now looks like a player who would be able to handle such responsibility. White is one of the Patriots’ most improved players this season, catching 27 passes for 244 yards and three touchdowns — all of which have come in the last two weeks. He’s also run for 92 yards — more than he had last year (56, at 2.5 yards per carry). It will be interesting to see if White’s role is affected when Dion Lewis returns from his knee injury. But, at the very least, he’s proven to be a capable and occasionally electrifying contributor to the Patriots’ offense. The bet here is that he extends his touchdown streak to three games on Sunday.
Rob Gronkowski: If he catches his 69th career touchdown pass Sunday — and he probably will, given that he has 10 touchdowns in 10 career games against the Bills — he might refuse to catch his 70th this week just so he can har-har about his very favorite number again in the postgame press conference. God, what a gift he is. Gronk trails only Tony Gonzalez (111) and Antonio Gates (102) in touchdowns by a tight end, and when he gets his 69th (har-har), he’ll have as many as Mark Bavaro (39) and Jay Novacek (30) combined.
GRIEVANCE OF THE WEEK
I’m generally a happy sports fan and writer. I’m fortunate to do this and cover the Patriots. I appreciate — marvel at, actually — the magnitude in real-time of what they have accomplished, and what they are still accomplishing. I also understand why they are disliked by so many outside of New England: It’s a combination of blatant envy and suspicion of Ernie Adams, and I’m only half-kidding about that last part. But that’s more a badge of honor than something to be ticked off about, at least when we’re outside the range of ESPN’s unaccountable spread of misinformation about Deflategate and garbage like that. It’s not easy for me to find grievances that aren’t repetitive. Yet, when I acknowledge during the occasional week that I don’t have one or I struggled to come up with one, you guys never fail to give me grief. Complain, you say. Come up with something. So you know what my grievance is this week? It’s you. You. You’re the grievance. Oh, and also Goodell, that Brooks Brothers-wrapped pustule. Mostly him, now that you mention it. You’re OK, I guess.
PREDICTION, OR IS THERE A MORE RIDICULOUS NICKNAME IN SPORTS THAN ‘BILLS MAFIA’? We’ll keep the math on this one simple. The Patriots have added Tom Brady and a full-throttle Rob Gronkowski since Week 4. The Bills have probably subtracted LeSean McCoy (the star running back is listed as doubtful), and their injury report this week had almost as many names as their depth chart. And did I mention revenge? Oh, yes, there will be revenge. It all adds up to a road rout. And a very sad little Mafia. Patriots 38, Bills 12.
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