Well, that was ugly.
When Buffalo Bills' quarterback E. J. Manuel walked off the field at the end of the third quarter with his team up by a score of 21-17, he signaled to the fans to raise the roof as if to say, "we got this"...
And why not? The Bills had the four point lead and was inside Patriots' territory with seemingly all of the momentum, the rookie-laden New England receiving corps seemed lost and no one could hold onto the ball, but wide receiver Danny Amendola overcame a tweak to his groin to catch 10 balls for 104 yards - most of the spectacular variety in tight coverage...
...Shane Vereen ran for 101 yards on just 14 carries and the New England defense yielded only 14 points despite being put on a short field repeatedly by offensive miscues as the Patriots gutted out a 23-21 come from behind victory over the Bills in Buffalo on Sunday afternoon.
Patriots quarterback Tom Brady put the ball in the air 52 times, completing 29 for 288 yards and two touchdowns, both to holdover Julian Edelman who caught seven balls for 79 yards - and combined with Amendola's gutty effort and a huge game from Vereen with 159 total yards from scrimmage, it turned out to be just enough.
New England left many points on the field, as they drove into Buffalo's red zone three times in the second half but came away with just two Stephen Gostkowski field goals, though one of those was the game winner with five seconds remaining...
...and while the stat line will indicate that the Buffalo defense stonewalled the Patriots twice on goal-to-go situations, the truth is that the Patriots suffered a breakdown in execution and questionable play calling that doomed both drives.
The Patriots defense was stout, bottling up Buffalo's big play threat C. J. Spiller to the tune of just 41 yards on 17 carries, and the Bills' running game to 136 yards for a four yards per carry average.
New England also took away Manuel's speedy deep targets for the most part, limiting the wide receivers to just 5 catches for 57 yards and two touchdowns and kept the rookie quarterback limited to the pocket for all intents and purposes. The Florida State product was impressive in his debut, however, calmly completing an efficient 18 of 27 passes, showing some polish to his game...
...but New England dominated the time of possession and gained over a third of their 446 total yards in the fourth quarter as the offense started to come alive just in time to pull out the sloppy victory.
New England drew first blood, Edelman pulling in a rocket from Brady in the back of the end zone and taking advantage of one of two Buffalo fumbles to take a 7-0 lead just four minutes into the game, Gostkowski giving the Patriots a 10-0 lead to end the first quarter with a 48 yard field goal - and then it started to fall apart for New England.
Bills' safety Da'Norris Searcy scooped up Patriots' running back Stevan Ridley's second fumble of the game at the Buffalo 24 yard line and raced 76 yards to cut New England's lead to three - Brady responding for the Patriots with a second scoring strike to Edelman to boost the lead back to 10 with two minutes remaining in the first half...
...but Manuel hit fellow rookie Robert Woods with a 19 scoring pass after a weird series of plays gave the ball back to New England with just under a minute to play in the quarter and Brady threw an interception while trying to hit a stumbling Zach Sudfeld in the flat, and just like that it was 17-14 Patriots at the half.
Buffalo opened the scoring in the second half, driving 80 yards in 11 easy looking plays to seize the lead from the Patriots, but the New England's stout defense and the offense finally finding it's rhythm allowed for a shut out the rest of the way, Gostkowski's two field goals just enough to pull out the ugliest of wins.
New England's rookies looked like rookies, running back Stevan Ridley got himself benched for putting the ball on the ground twice and the offense struggled to get anything going - but in the end the Patriots did what quality teams do, put the mistakes behind them and constructed a championship drive to pull out the game.
Now the Patriots return to Foxborough to prepare for the New York Jets on a short week - so short in fact that maybe Brady and his receivers can carry over a little of their momentum from this fourth quarter comeback.
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