A lesser team than the Patriots would have found a way to lose
21 thoughts on the Patriots’ win over the Chargers:
1. Well, it certainly wasn’t an aesthetic wonder. The Patriots’ scoring summary included just one touchdown, four field goals, and a safety. They allowed an 87-yard run to a guy who nearly didn’t play because of a toe injury. They scored just six points in the second half and the Chargers had a chance to tie the game on a last-gasp drive – and that’s despite the Chargers making so many boneheaded plays over the course of the game that you’d almost think they were the Browns in disguise.
2. But the Patriots’ 21-13 win over the Chargers, which sends them into the bye week with a 6-2 record, is satisfying in some ways. The defense, playing its first game since stalwart linebacker Dont’a Hightower was lost for the season, held the Chargers to 13 points, and has allowed just 12.8 points per game over the past month. Tom Brady (32 of 47, 333 yards, 1 TD) protected the ball despite an increasing fierce Chargers pass rush over the course of the game. The coverage teams have been exceptional. And virtually every Patriots running back contributed a big play at some point.
3. A lesser team – or certainly a less-disciplined team – might have found a way to lose that game. Instead, the Patriots held on, with Jonathan Jones finally closing it out with an interception of a Philip Rivers heave near the goal line. There is plenty for the Patriots to work on in the bye week – for starters, they have left way too many points on the field this season. But any win in the NFL is worthy of appreciation, no matter how uneven the performance was on the way to achieving it.
4. The biggest defensive play of the game for the Patriots, other than Jones’s clinching interception, might have come from Trey Flowers. With the Patriots clinging to an 18-13 lead and the Chargers facing third-and-8 from their own 26, Flowers tipped a pass intended for Travis Benjamin on a slant pattern. Benjamin, a speedster who had a 24-yard scoring catch earlier in the quarter, looked like he had room to convert the first down at the least had the ball reached his mitts.
5. Stephen Gostkowski missed his first field goal attempt of the season two week ago, a 47-yarder in the win over the Jets. Sunday, he tripled that total, missing on a pair of 43-yarders while also making kicks from 25, 26, 36, and 43. The Patriots’ inability to close drives was frustrating. So was Gostkowski’s inability in those two instances to salvage them, though he did knock one through from 26 yards with 1 minute 12 seconds left to put the Patriots up 8.
6. Chris Hogan has taken a beating this season, even by the usual vicious standards of playing wide receiver in the NFL. He was on the injury report all week after taking a shot to the ribs against the Jets last week. But that injury, which was wince-inducing when it happened, looked positively peaceful compared to the apparent shoulder injury he suffered late in this one.
7. Hogan was down for a couple of minutes after taking a shot from Hayes Pullard, then left the field with his right arm dangling at his side. That dude has earned his bye week. Here’s hoping he’s back once it’s over.
8. I’m not sure Benjamin’s blunder in the second quarter was the most boneheaded NFL play I’ve ever seen. But it might be most boneheaded play I’ve seen since Leon Lett’s heyday. With the score tied 7-7 in the second quarter, Benjamin fielded a Ryan Allen punt at the Chargers 11, took a crossover dribble, recovered the ball, reversed field, ran into the end zone, got his lower half tied up by Brandon King and his upper half drilled by Jonathan Jones, and essentially gifted the Patriots two free points and a 9-7 lead. Even Cyrus Jones would have known better.
9. I suppose this was a prediction so obvious that it had no choice but to come true, but the Patriots did use their running backs to great effect in attempting to neutralize the Chargers’ pass rush. Rex Burkhead, James White, and Dion Lewis combined for nine catches for 120 yards in the first half, and 14 catches for 163 yards overall.
10. For each of them, it was distinctively excellent game. Burkhead, who on one catch deked a Charger with a three-quarter spin that served as a passable Barry Sanders imitation, finished with 11 touches for 83 yards, including seven carries. He doesn’t shy away from contact, either. White, Mr. Dependable in the passing game, had two huge first-down conversions on a third-quarter drive that led to a Stephen Gostkowski field goal and finished with 85 yards on five catches.
Lewis’s stats weren’t spectacular, but he picked up 44 hard-fought yards on the ground and also contributed a 71-yard kickoff return.
11. What’s the angriest you’ve ever seen Brady on the sideline? The one that sticks in my mind is his lambasting of Joey Galloway during a loss to the Jets early in 2009. I bring this up for this reason: Philip Rivers appears to go into full lunatic mode on every other abbreviated Chargers offensive series. He yells at everyone like they’re Joey Galloway. It’s really too bad he never played with Joey Galloway.
12. The Patriots took a 15-7 lead into halftime, which is fine, of course. But it did feel like it should have been more. Brady was 19 of 26 for 191 yards in the first half. The Chargers’ pass rush, save for one ferocious Joey Bosa sack, hadn’t done much damage despite LaAdrian Waddle taking over for Marcus Cannon at right tackle. And the Patriots ran 40 plays to just 19 for the Chargers.
13. I’m not saying it was entirely due to Dont’a Hightower’s absence, but I doubt Melvin Gordon already would have been over 100 yards rushing 40 seconds into the second quarter had he not been lost for the season last week.
14. Gordon’s 87-yard run, which put the Chargers up 7-0 in the first quarter, was the longest in Chargers history. That’s kind of surprising given all of the backs with lightning-bolt speed they’ve had in their history, from Paul Lowe and Keith Lincoln to James Brooks, Lionel “Little Train’’ James, Gary Anderson, and Darren Sproles. Oh, and Marion Butts, obviously.
15. Malcolm Butler nearly pulled a Ben Watson, catching Gordon from behind. But Gordon was on to his efforts to try to punch the ball out. CBS had a sharp close-up replay of Gordon looking up at Gillette’s video board at the end of the run to see who was closing in on him.
16. I can’t recall a would-be tackler whiffing as badly on a one-on-one play as chatty Chargers defensive back Jahleel Addae did on James White’s third-and-11 catch and run in the first quarter. Addae was in White’s path, but the Patriots running back gave him a little shimmy of the shoulders and that’s all it took to send him falling to the turf all by himself.
17. I don’t know much about Addae, but he seems to yap more than any Chargers defensive back since Donald Florence. He also wears one yellow glove, which made it appear as though a flag was being thrown every time he was in on a play. Appropriate, since there probably could have been a flag on him every play, at least when he was attempting to stick with Rob Gronkowski. He got away with an obvious pass interference call on Gronk in the first quarter, but got nailed for one on the drive that culminated with a Stephen Gostkowski field goal and a 15-7 Patriots lead.
18. Gronkowski scored the Patriots’ first touchdown early in the second quarter, his 2-yard touchdown grab capping a 14-play, 77-yard drive. If he’s had easier touchdowns in his career, they’re escaping memory right now. Jacob Hollister essentially served as the lead blocker to get Gronkowski free, and Brady had enough time to purchase a new Nerf, unwrap it, and toss it in Gronk’s direction before the Chargers could react.
Rob Gronkowski on the win: “We have to pick it up.”
Rob Gronkowski on the win: “We have to pick it up.”
19. For those who prematurely lamented this week that CBS analyst and Chargers legend Dan Fouts would favor his former team this week, did you happen to hear a single example? I didn’t, nor was I expecting to. Fouts is a pro. He did have one sly comment about the Chargers’ short-sighted move to Los Angeles, saying something like, “Oh, they were in San Diego once?’’ Otherwise you wouldn’t have known he was essentially the Chargers version of Drew Bledsoe.
20. In the second quarter, Fouts had a sharp observation on how Brady was tempering the Chargers’ pass rush. He noted, after a quick completion to Burkhead, that Brady was setting up shallower in the pocket to allow the tackles to ride the Chargers pass rushers outside and behind Brady. For some reason that made me think of Chris Slade and how he seemed to overrun every quarterback he pursued late in his Patriots career.
21. The Chargers got their first of many what-ifs out of the way on their first possession. Rivers led the offense on a 12-play drive that included three first-down conversions and a pair of completions of 15 yards or more. But the drive stalled in Patriots territory due to a penalty and a couple of hard hits by Elandon Roberts on doomed running plays. The Chargers had to settle for a Nick Novak 51-yard field goal attempt. He missed, because Nick Novak is no Rolf Benirschke.
[fragment number=0]
