They say that sometimes all good things must come to an end, in the case of the New England Patriots 15-game win streak against the Buffalo Bills, they hope to not only end their skid, but make a bold statement to the rest of the NFL.
After two impressive victories over the defending AFC West champion, Kansas City Chiefs and an up-and-coming Oakland Raiders team, the upstart (2-0) Buffalo Bills now get to face the reigning 2010 AP NFL Most Valuable Player, New England quarterback Tom Brady and the high-flying (2-0) Patriots.
The Bills are coming off an improbable Week 2 38-35 comeback victory over Oakland, punctuated by a six-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick to wide receiver David Nelson with 14 second left. Buffalo trailed 21-3 before scoring on each of its five second-half possessions.
Fitzpatrick would finish the game by completing 28-of-46 passes for 264 yards and throw three touchdowns.
Buffalo wide receiver Steve Johnson would catch a seven-yard pass, Johnson would finish with eight catches for 96 yards and tight end Scott Chandler would have a six-yard touchdown pass, Chandler would finish with two catches for 16 yards.
Bills running back Fred Jackson would rush for 117 yards on 15 carries and two touchdowns, including a 43-yard touchdown run.
For the Patriots, Brady is just playing on a level near his NFL record-setting 50 touchdown season of 2007.
With Brady’s 423 yard, three touchdown performance in a Week 2 35-21 win over the San Diego Chargers, Brady has passed for an NFL-record 974 yards in two games and is currently on pace to demolish Hall-Of-Fame quarterback Dan Marino’s single season passing record of 5,084 yards set in 1983—by 2,436 yards—with 7,520
Brady is also on pace to break his own record of 50 by throwing 56 touchdowns in 2011. Despite Brady’s record-setting blaze, the Patriots may be in for a stiff challenge against the upset-minded Bills due to key areas of concern.
The first area that should worry the Patriots is their horrific pass defense which is currently ranked 31st in the NFL thru two games, New England gives up an average of 381.0 yards a game. New England also gives up the second most average of total yards a game at 479.0
While it may be acceptable to give up 378 yards to Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, it is really disturbing to give up 416 yards to embattled Miami Dolphins quarterback Chad Henne.
The second area of concern for New England is injuries, as starting center Dan Koppen is out with a broken fibula and tight end Aaron Hernandez is out 2-4 weeks with a knee injury which could cause pass protection and offensive flow issues for Brady.
With the current rash of injuries to New England, the Pats must effective protect Brady from the Bill’s hybrid 3-4 defense.
The third area is that it is no secret that certain NFL teams—such as the New York Jets—have figured out a way to stop Brady and that is to get direct pressure on him from up the middle. Brady has had issues with teams that mainly run 4-3 defenses—as witnessed in the New York Giants Super Bowl XLII upset—over the Patriots
While the 2010 Cleveland Browns do not run a 4-3 defense under former defensive coordinator Rob Ryan—now in Dallas—Cleveland was able to successfully disrupt Brady’s timing and keep him off of the field—with long time-consuming drives—during a Week 8 34-14 upset.
The Detroit Lions—a 4-3 defense— manhandled Brady into a forced fumble and one interception in a 34-10 blowout in a week 3 pre-season game.
If Buffalo has any hopes of going to 3-0, they must rush Brady from up the middle, get in his face and disrupt his timing.
Buffalo has the defensive personnel to best pressure Brady in a hybrid 3-4, tough running game with Jackson to keep the Pats off the field and the speed at wideout in Nelson and Johnson to attack the Pat’s defense.
They also have the most underrated QB in the NFL in Fitzpatrick.
This Patriots-Bills matchup will come down to which defense can stop the opposing quarterback down in the clutch, with the Patriots issues in the secondary along with the losses of Koppen at center and Hernandez at tight end, not even a 600-yard passing game from Brady may be enough to help New England on Sunday.
Prediction : Bills 41 Patriots 37
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The 416 yards of passing by Henne would have been disturbing if the yards resulted in points and if most of it didn’t occur late in the 4th qtr with the Dolphins down 2 or 3 TD’s.
When the Dolphins started at 8:48 of the 4th down 14 points, Jaws and Gruden both commented that the Dolphins have done nothing offensively all night.
Somehow this has morphed into some sort of yard for yard ariel duel.