Welker/Gronk=big days but consider this

[YardRat]

Buffalo's pass defense did a damn decent job against New England's receivers.

Welker and Gronkowski accounted for 23 of Brady's 30 completions. Woodhead, Ridley, and Edelmen had 5 more coming out of the backfield.

That leaves two for Ocho, and ZERO for Deion Branch who was a complete non-factor yesterday despite grabbing 15 balls the first two weeks of the season.

I'd have to watch the game a couple of more times to see if there is any validity, but could that have been the defensive gameplan going in? We'll give you Welker underneath all day long, but you're not beating us deep on the outside?

[Ickybaluky]

Re: Welker/Gronk=big days but consider this

Buffalo's pass defense did a damn decent job against New England's receivers.

Welker and Gronkowski accounted for 23 of Brady's 30 completions. Woodhead, Ridley, and Edelmen had 5 more coming out of the backfield.

That leaves two for Ocho, and ZERO for Deion Branch who was a complete non-factor yesterday despite grabbing 15 balls the first two weeks of the season.

I'd have to watch the game a couple of more times to see if there is any validity, but could that have been the defensive gameplan going in? We'll give you Welker underneath all day long, but you're not beating us deep on the outside?

I don't think that was the gameplan. At least, if they rotated coverage to Branch to leave Welker open it was stupid. They did a good job keeping Branch off the stat sheet, but I doubt they wanted to let Gronk and Welker go off like that.

As it was, with Hernandez out, the top two receiving threats are Welker and Gronkowski. I think that is why they were used so much.

One thing I think the Bills did very effectively was have their DL peel off the rush when they didn't get pressure and get their hands up to block the passing lanes. They did it effectively most of the day, and it was probably the critical play with the deflection that led to Florence's pick-6. Part of that is on the Pats OL, as they need to shove those DL so they can't jump and get up.