Football is beautiful.
As slow as the game is, a much a commercials interrupt play almost constantly football creates a kind of atmosphere that no other game of its kin can. Football captivates us and even when we think all is lost, we stick around.
Such was the case today in Foxborough as after an up and down first 55 minutes of the game, the Patriots and Saints took it to town in the final 5 deciding the game and sending spells of screaming across most all New England living rooms.
Tom Brady of course was coming off of one of the worst games of his career. He threw for just 119 yards on 18 attempts against Cincinatti while watching his streak of 52 straight games with a touchdown pass painfully die in the doldrums of New England's 13-6 loss to the Bengals. Over the next week between the conclusion of the Cincinatti game and the beginning of this week's match-up against the Saints, worries began to pop up surrounding both Danny Amendola and Rob Gronkowski. Neither seemed 100% and as it stood it looked like for the 6th straight week, Brady would be devoid of his favorite scoring threat: Gronk.
But nevertheless, the game went on and as they have done all year long, New England found a way to make it work. With a dinged up Edelman, a vacated tight end position and a Danny Ammendola who would leave the game in the 3rd quarter, Brady utilized his three running backs (Stevan Ridley, Brandon Bolden and LeGarret Blount) running 30 out of his 78 plays from scrimmage in the format of the rush. This was a season high for the Patriots and also the first time in 4 games this season that Stephan Ridley had compiled more than 55 yards via the ground game. He had 96 Sunday against the Saints. As for the remaining Pats backs who saw time against New Orleans while their numbers were far diminished in comparison to Ridley, Brandon Boulden snagged a nice 12 yard gain as his long for the night.
But for Tom Brady, he knew that you cannot run 100% of your plays on the back of a rusher and while he still wasn't hurling 300 yards passing, Tom was much better this week as he smacked up 269 yards through the air and as a he posted a completion to in-completions ratio of 1.38.
But nevertheless, the Patriots squandered a 1st half lead and came to a point in the 4th quarter where the game was on the line. After surrendering the ball on 4th down and then watching Tom Brady hurl a long interception, the game seemed over until we remembered how great this Patriots defense has been this season. Over the next four plays the stifled the Saints offence and even dropped Drew Brees for a 10 yard sack thus forcing the Saints into a punt that allowed Tom Brady to get into a great position with seconds left in the game.
"We had the attitude out there that we're never down and out, and with him, anything is possible,'' said patriots pass catcher Austin Collie, when asked about Tom Brady. "Everybody knows how good he is. You can take anyone off the street and know that Tom Brady is going to take it to the end.''
With just under 10 seconds left in the game the 17 yards that separated Tom Brady and his offence from the end zone they so desperately hoped to get to seemed like an impassable abyss. But with one play left in the game Brady went all out and in a throw seemingly carried by the cheers of the Patriots faithful, he found the mitts of rookie wide-out: Kenbrell Thompkins. 30-27, Patriots lead.
Following the game, a surprisingly gleeful Bill Belichick said "Sorry if you had to re-write some of those stories there at the end, what a football game. I feel like that took about five years off my life.''
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