-Ryan Fitzpatrick had one of his best games as a Bill. His stat line was 27/40 for 337 yards 2 TDs 1 Int . He also had a fumble early in the game that was recovered by the Patriots and that led to a rushing touchdown after two pass interference penalties in the end zone. The most important thing was that his accuracy was greatly improved. A knock on Fitz all season long has been on his accuracy in long to intermediate range throws. That was not the case Sunday as he was hitting all day long on throws in the 10-25 yard range, especially over the middle.
-The reason the final pass was an interception route is because TJ Graham ran the wrong route. Graham even admitted to doing so in post game interviews. It was a judgement call by Graham whether he should have dropped behind McCourty or crossed in front of him. Fitz threw the ball to the spot where Graham was supposed to be for what likely would have been a touchdown, only problem that Graham was not in the area. This morning on WGR 550 Fitz took some of the blame for the pick, as any good quarterback does, stating that it is his job to make sure the offense is all on the right page. The guy I chose to blame is Chan Gailey for making that play call in the first place. That is a rookie wide receiver that has not seen much playing time because of the fact he has had trouble picking up the offense, why put him in that position? I am not ignoring the fact that CJ Spiller was open on the play around the ten yard line. Fans will say that the pass should have gone to Spiller, but hindsight is 20/20. If Graham runs the right route chances are the game is over.
-Another game and another electric performance by CJ Spiller. With only 13 combined touches in the game he had 131 all purpose yards! This guy need to get more touches in the game because he is one of the best playmakers in the NFL right now. He will get his share of playing time this week with Fred Jackson suffering a concussion in the final drive of the game. Jackson has already been ruled out for Thursday which means that with a short week of rest Spiller will be the man in the spotlight on the national stage against Miami on Thursday night. Speaking of Jackson his game was nothing to sneeze at either, totaling 20 touches for 115 yards and 2 touchdowns. Jackson also had two fumbles on the day one of which was recovered by the Patriots. The team bailed him out on both occasions first by forcing a three and out and then Eric Wood ripping the ball away from Patriots defenders in the bottom of the pile. Fred Jackson is the heart of this team and a very good running back but CJ Spiller may just be turning into one of the premier players in the game.
-What was with those penalties? A Bills team that is usually quite disciplined completely imploded in the penalty department. Some of the calls were questionable at best. On the Patriots first score George Wilson was flagged for pass interference in the end zone even though he barely touched his man. Later Stephon Gilmore was flagged on a deep pass when he got tangled up with his man, even though the pass was clearly not catchable. Even so, that does not justify 14 penalties for 148 yards. If they only commit half of those, still more than their average, they would have been in a much better position to win the game.
-Why are we having a third string defensive end cover the best tight end in the league at all let alone in the red zone? Easy call for Tom Brady, just toss it up there and let Gronkowski come down with it. Dave Wannstedt has to be better at play calling than that.
- The offensive line did not look like they were ready to play when the game started. They took several penalties and Eric Wood let Vince Wilfork get by him and force a fumble on Fitzpatrick which led to Patriots points. Once the game got going however they seemed to snap out of it. Wood recovered and held Wilfork in check for much of the game. The left side of the line was a force in the run blocking department opening gaps for Spiller and Jackson to rip of chunks of yards. The one man that seemed to struggle a little bit upon first watching was Kraig Urbik which leads me to wonder how much his injury is really bothering him.
- As soon as the interception was thrown many Bills fans found themselves saying "there goes the season." That may be likely but there is still a chance that this team can make the playoffs (Cue Jim Mora: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwq7BYOnDrM ) . It has been widely documented that the NFC is dominating the AFC in head to head games this season. That means that the record to get a wild card birth goes from 10-6 or 9-7 to likely 8-8 or even 7-9. The Bills are 3-6 heading into the final seven games of the season. The quality of their opponents drops off significantly from this point forward. The Dolphins(2) started strong but have dropped off recently getting blown out by the Titans last week. The Jets have looked awful since they played the Bills in week one, their offense cannot move the ball to save their lives. The Colts look to have rebounded much sooner than expected and pose a threat on offense but they are not very deep on defense The Seahawks are the opposite, with a very good defense but an offense that struggles to move the ball outside of Marshawn Lynch. The Jaguars are just plain bad. The Rams are solid on both sides of the ball even forcing the feared 49'ers into a tie last week. So even though it may be too soon to count the Bills out they must win between 5-7 of their remaining games to have a shot. Whether they are capable of doing this I will leave up to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment