It was another late night and another win for the Patriots. The Patriots advance to 10 and 0 with another divisional win over the Buffalo Bills. The Patriots pulled off a tight 20-13 win in the 20 degree Foxborough weather.
Belichick was happy about the win last night but was also very quick to point out it was not perfect. He said “I didn’t think that was our best”, “But we made enough plays and we got some big plays from special teams, got some big plays defensively. So it was good today and we scored enough points, so we’ll take it and move on to Denver.”
The Buffalo defensive line was all over Tom Brady as they got to him 10 times last night. There was multiple times where he was rocked after a pass or just outside of the pocket. Belichick was quick to praise Brady on his mental toughness saying “I don’t think anybody ever questioned Tom’s toughness.”
The pressure got to Brady and you could tell he was nervous in the pocket as he threw a lot of ball to the turf. There was one moment in the fourth quarter that had me very nervous Brady got hit after the he got hit and was very slow to get up.
But as normal it’s not a Patriots game without another injury this time Danny Amendola went down and did not return with a knee injury in the third quarter. Belichick had no information on Amendola after the game.
But as normal there is always controversy in a Patriots game this time it was an inadvertent whistle by an official that took away a Patriots touchdown. Brady had this to say about the play “It’s just one of those plays. I don’t know really what happened. So I was just kind of rolling and Danny [Amendola] did a good job kind of springing free and made a great play.”
But that is not enough for me as I wanted the touchdown. It was just a very poorly officiated game by Gene Steratore and crew. As they lost control of it after this play and never gained it back.
After the game Gene Steratore was involved in a pool report. In this pool report Steratore said “I think as the quarterback started to get near the sideline and press the line judge, who was the official right near the quarterback, [Gary Arthur]. I think as Tom [Brady] released the football, the line judge lost track of maybe where the ball was at that point and almost by its own definition, inadvertently blew the whistle.”
This cannot happen it is an embarrassment to the league. You can have inadvertent whistles it’s a joke. After that play the referee’s lost total control of that game as every flag turned into a 5 minute conference before they announced the penalty. It was absolutely ridiculous this was by far the worst officiated game I have seen all year. It needs to change we are seeing this even more in other games too not just the Patriots. It’s time for the NFL official to be a full-time job and not a prat-time.
On a final thought there was a lot of excellent anti ESPN signs out here last night. It was great to see. I was personally in attendance last night and was able to get right up on the stage and hold up my “ESPN +Mort = Lies” sign. I got a lot of attention as I took multiple photos with other fans and security guards at my seat and around the stadium. I was also asked to leave the section nearest the ESPN pre-game stage as I yelled “Lies” to them multiple times. But it was all good as the security agreed with me and laughed and took a picture with me before I left.
It was all in all a great night and the Patriots are 10 and 0 life is good.
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