10 Things We Learned Yesterday
In no particular order, here are 10 things we learned about the Patriots in yesterday’s game, a 24-21 win over the Seattle Seahawks:
1. With their season on the line, the Patriots weren’t about to blink. It was 4th and goal at the one-yard line with 2:44 left. The Patriots were trailing 21-16, and were in danger of seeing their playoff chances go up in smoke. That’s when Sammy Morris plunged over the goal line, giving the Patriots a 22-21 lead — which was eventually pushed to 24-21 when New England converted the two-point conversion moments later. With the 49ers-Jets game still in doubt, it was a huge sequence for the Patriots, who managed to not only survive in the AFC playoff race with yesterday’s win, but pull into a three-way tie for first place in the AFC East. All 53 on the active roster knew just how important the game was, including Junior Seau, who put on football cleats for the first time since Super Bowl XLII only a few days ago. “If we don’t take care of this game there is no tomorrow,” Seau said after the game. One week after getting his lunch handed to him by the Steelers, Matt Cassel threw for 268 yards and a touchdown — and didn’t turn the ball over. “It was a huge win,” Cassel said of the fourth-quarter drive that resulted in the game-winning touchdown. “That’s what big games come down to, and we knew that that the season was on the line and we had to come up here and take care of business in order to put us in the position to still be in that playoff hunt.”
2. Wes Welker has become the most dependable Patriots wide receiver since Troy Brown in 2001. We’ve run out of ways to describe Welker’s dependability. (Maybe there’s a James Liptonesque phrase out there we can make up, like “scrumtrillescent.”) Anyway, a week after getting lit up by Pittsburgh safety Ryan Clark, Welker bounced back to have a near career game yesterday. He finished with 12 receptions for 134 yards, his highest reception total of the season and the second-highest reception total of his career. He (and to some extent, Kevin Faulk) remain the most dependable options in the New England passing game — of the 17 passes thrown toward Welker yesterday, he caught 12 of them. (Of the last 52 passes thrown in his direction, he’s caught 41 of them.) Seven of his catches went for first downs. So when it came time to find someone for the key two-point conversion late in the fourth quarter, Welker was the natural choice. “Wes is always impressive,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said of Welker, who now has 96 catches for 1,002 yards on the season. “He’s a good receiver. He’s really a competitive guy, a smart guy, quick, good hands, good concentration, tough. He does a lot of things well, and today was a big day for him.”
3. When it comes to Richard Seymour, ask and you shall receive. Last week, Seymour wondered aloud why he wasn’t on the field on third down against the Steelers. “I knew I wasn’t going to be on third down, and it wasn’t something I agreed with, but it is what it is,” he told Sportsradio 850’s “Dale & Holley.” “I respect everybody for their decisions. That doesn’t mean that I agree with all of them. That’s just the way that it is. I’m not going to be a cancer, I’m still going to come and fight with the guys. But it is what it is.” Yesterday against Seattle, he was on the field for all of the Seahawks’ 12 third-down plays.
4. The veteran linebackers — Junior Seau and Rosevelt Colvin — arrived just in time. With no Pierre Woods and Adalius Thomas, the Patriots were already shorthanded at linebacker. But after Tedy Bruschi and Mike Vrabel went down in the first half and rookie Gary Guyton struggled, both Seau and Colvin were pressed into service. (So much for easing back into things.) They played most of the rest of the way, and were a mixed bag. Seau clearly had his struggles — the Seahawks found him immediately in the first half. Shortly after he entered the game, he was in one-on-one coverage with tight end John Carlson. Seattle QB Seneca Wallace snuck one past Seau, who dove for the pass and missed, allowing Carlson to walk into the end zone untouched for a 10-yard touchdown that gave Seattle a 14-3 lead. In addition, Seau was badly juked in the second half on Deion Branch’s 63-yard reception in the third quarter. (“That was a great play — Branch did a heck of a job throwing me a little fake,” Seau said after the game. “I went surfing and that was it.”) Colvin wasn’t under the spotlight as much, but still managed to come away with a quarterback hit. “They’re professionals. They both prepared hard all week,” Belichick said of the pair. “Of course, Junior didn’t get in here until early Friday morning, and only had one day of practice and a little walk-through yesterday. He’s a pro, and so is Rosey. Rosey worked hard all week and did a lot of things extra to be ready for the game, and we sure needed him.”
5. Third-down offense, an area that was a real sore spot for the Patriots last week, is a point of pride this week. There’s a world of difference between the Seattle and Pittsburgh defense, but the change from week to week was certainly an eye opener, and worth mentioning. Against the Steelers, the Patriots were unable to generate any sort of sustained offense, going 1-for-13 (8 percent) on third down. Yesterday against Seattle, Cassel and the offense was 10-for-18 (56 percent). Again, we must take these numbers with a grain of salt because they came against the Seahawks, but the dramatic uptick is worth noting. Many of those third-down conversions came on New England’s game-winning drive, where the Patriots converted three consecutive third-down opportunities. “We had some left over from last week,” Cassel said. “We did a great job on third down. The offensive line did a great job on third down, people made some plays on third down.”
6. He’s still not a rock-solid presence in the secondary, but Brandon Meriweather is clearly improving. The second-year safety was in the middle of an awful lot of action yesterday, finishing with seven tackles (tying for tops on the team). He was beaten badly by Branch on Seattle’s first touchdown of the afternoon, a 14-yarder where the receiver got great separation from Meriweather in virtually no space. But on the flip side, there were plenty of positives for the second-year safety, including the sack of Wallace at the end of the game that forced a fumble to seal the victory. There was also a nice pass defense on Seattle’s first series — where he almost came away with an interception on Branch — as well as a nice stop on Seattle running back Maurice Morris with just six minutes left in the first quarter that led to a three-yard loss. But considering the situation and the play (he beat the block of fullback Leonard Weaver), the sack may have been his biggest moment in a New England uniform. “I think it was a bigger play for the team than it was for me,” Meriweather said when asked about the first sack of his pro career. “Personal glory for me really means nothing. The team winning and continuing to run for the playoffs means everything to me.”
7. It wasn’t just Cassel who had a nice bounce back game this week. Most of the special teams had a good week as well. A week after badly missing a field goal and having a lousy afternoon against the Steelers, Stephen Gostkowski hit three in the wind and rain of Seattle, including a 50-yarder in the first quarter that got New England on the board. (Also working in Gostkowski’s favor was the 42-yarder and 27-yarder.) In addition, kick returner Ellis Hobbs III had a good afternoon, including a 55-yard return in the second quarter that set up New England’s first touchdown of the day six plays later when Cassel found Ben Watson. (Hobbs averaged an impressive 32 yards per return for the day.) The only area of special teams that was slightly inconsistent was the punt team — punter Chris Hanson did have a 53-yarder in the first quarter (good), but added a 22-yarder in the second quarter (bad).
8. Without Ty Warren, New England’s run defense still has problems. For the second consecutive week, the Patriots were without Warren, and for the second straight week, they struggled to stop the run. (Some of this can also be attributed to the loss of Vince Wilfork, who went to the locker room in the first quarter with a shoulder injury.) Although the circumstances were different this time around — the Steelers 113 of their 161 rushing yards in the second half in an attempt to try and grind the clock, while the Seahawks’ rushing yards were equally spread out throughout the game — it was still an issue. Seattle managed six yards a carry in the first half and 5.2 yards per carry for the entire game. (They finished with 134 rushing yards on the afternoon, the third time in the last four games New England has allowed at least 100 rushing yards.) Some of it can be explained away, like the loss of Warren and Wilfork, as well as the fact that New England was left thin in the second half because of injury. They also had trouble containing Wallace, who had three carries for 47 yards. “He was elusive out there,” Belichick said. “He scrambled out and got a couple of throws on us, and then he scrambled around and ran a couple of times.”
9. Among Patriots players, there doesn’t appear to be a whole lot of ill will toward Deion Branch. Branch had a sensational game against his old team yesterday. The wide receiver, who has struggled with injury since he was dealt to Seattle before the start of the 2006 season as part of a contract dispute, had four catches for 88 yards and two touchdowns. His greatest moment came on a 63-yard hookup with Wallace in the third quarter where he zigzagged through almost the entire New England defense. That set up Seattle’s last touchdown of the day, a four-yard scoring strike from Wallace that gave the Seahawks a 21-13 lead with 49 seconds left in the third quarter. It was a bittersweet afternoon for Branch, who came of age as a receiver with the Patriots. He went to see many of his old teammates at their hotel on Seattle the day before the game, and said, “there were a lot of emotions running early on.” But once the ball kicked off, it was all business. “I didn’t want to turn it into a circus, with all of us out there hugging and laughing and joking before the game. I don’t think that coach Belichick would have been too fond of that with their guys, either,” said the 29-year-old Branch, who was the MVP of Super Bowl XXXIX with New England. “But once the game got started, it’s another game. I have to go out and help the team that I’m on win the game.”
10. Thanks to the Jets — who lost to San Francisco — the Patriots still have plenty of meaningful football ahead. With New England, Miami and the New York Jets now all with an 8-5 record, it’s a three-way tie for first place in the AFC East. It doesn’t look like things will be decided until the final week of the season when the Patriots travel to Buffalo and the Jets host Miami. “It’s a three-game season,” Belichick said. “We’ve just got to suck it up here and get ready and try to go down there and have a good effort against Oakland. We know they are a very physical team, and they beat the Jets earlier this year. We’ve seen them play good, hardnosed, tough football, and they’re very physical, so we’re going to have to do a lot of things well. Hopefully we’ll have a good week of preparation out here and get as many guys as we can back out there and compete on Sunday.”
Christopher Price has covered the Patriots for Boston Metro since 2001. His book, “The Blueprint: How the New England Patriots Beat the System to Create the Last Great NFL Superpower” is current available from St. Martin’s Press in paperback. He can be reached at christopher.price@metro.us.
