Victory at a cost

Brady goes down, Patriots hold on to beat Chiefs

Patriots 17, Chiefs 10

 You’ve never heard an NFL stadium so quiet after a home-team victory.

As a sold-out Gillette Stadium held its collective breath waiting for more news on quarterback Tom Brady, the Patriots snuck past the Chiefs yesterday, taking a 17-10 win over Kansas City in the season opener.

Brady was knocked from the game by Kansas City safety Bernard Pollard with 7:38 left in the first quarter after Pollard took a shot at Brady’s left knee. Things got so quiet after Brady disappeared down the tunnel to the locker room, his teammates took notice every time there was even a small ripple of crowd noise.

“Every time the fans cheered, I looked over at the door,” said Randy Moss, who finished with 116 receiving yards and a touchdown. “I was like a little kid at the candy store just hoping you would see that No. 12 come out those doors and up the steps.”

In Brady’s place, Matt Cassel ended up going 13-for-18 for 152 yards and a touchdown. Cassel was helped by another otherworldly performance by Moss and a defense that stopped the Chiefs four times inside New England’s 5-yard line late in the fourth for the win.

“I was really pleased with the way our defense stepped up there at the end,” head coach Bill Belichick said.
Cassel and Moss found each other on the first highlight play of the season, a 51-yard connection that set up the Patriots’ first score of the day — a 10-yard strike from Cassel to Moss early in the second quarter to make it 7-0.

After a Kansas City field goal, the Patriots pushed out to a 14-3 lead late in the third when Sammy Morris bulled his way into the end zone from five yards out. The teams traded fourth-quarter scores — a Dwayne Bowe 13-yard TD reception and a 37-yard field goal from Stephen Gostkowski — to make it 17-10.

But a 68-yard connection from Kansas City’s Damon Huard to Devard Darling with just more than a minute left got the Chiefs to New England’s 5.

However, the Patriots were able to stymie Kansas City, thanks in large part to a Bowe drop in the end zone and a nice job by Deltha O’Neal to deny Bowe on a fourth-down pass play.