BillsZone’s Bills @ Patriots Postgame Report Card

by Michael J. Thomas

Quarterbacks We should have known that the quarterback with 0 sacks and 0 INT in the last two games wouldn’t last. Drew Bledsoe brought us back to reality by throwing 3 interceptions and taking 2 sacks. When he wasn’t throwing picks, Bledsoe was throwing horrible passes with no touch on them at all. Bledsoe finished the game 8/19 for 76 yards, 3 INT, and 0 touchdowns for a disgusting quarterback rating of 14.3%. He struggled all night with the pass rush and never really got time to go through his reads.

This prompted him to lock onto the receiver (mainly Eric Moulds) and led to his interceptions. JP Losman came in for garbage time and didn’t do any better. First, he fumbled the ball after a sack, and then he threw an interception right into LB Tully Banta-Cain’s hands. Losman was 1/2 for 5 yards, 1 INT and ran once for 5 yards. He proved that he is definitely not ready to take over yet. Hopefully Losman will be ready soon, because Bledsoe is definitely done. Grade: F-

Running Backs: Willis McGahee was shut down by Bill Belichick’s defense. He started out with a few good runs in the first drive. Then the Patriots made some adjustments and started to plug all the holes and stuffed Willis constantly. McGahee had 14 carries for 37 yards, and caught 1 pass for 12 yards. He looked slow and never could get into a rhythm out there. It certainly didn’t help that the Patriots defensive line manhandled the offensive line. Travis Henry saw some action, but had no carries. Daimon Shelton started out with a few good blocks, and then was taken out of the game by the Patriots linebackers. Shelton caught 1 pass for 5 yards. Grade: F

Wide Receivers: Eric Moulds was the only receiver that Drew Bledsoe could see through his tunnel vision. He had some problems catching a few passes, but most of them were bad throws. Moulds caught 5 passes for 46 yards. Lee Evans went back to his disappearing act again. He was not heard from until the 4th quarter in garbage time, when Drew Bledsoe threw one pass to him for 15 yards. Sam Aiken and Freddie Smith were also silent and never really in the game plan. Overall, it was not a good day for this unit at all. Maybe Josh Reed is missed more than we think. After all, Aiken and Smith haven’t done anything when they have been given the chance over last few weeks. Grade: F

Tight Ends: It was nice to see Mark Campbell involved in the passing game 3 weeks ago. But why we haven’t seen him get any balls thrown his way since then? Campbell was always a good target for the small yardage in the middle of the field. Now we got Tim Euhus, who can catch one for 3 yards, but drop an easy one. Grade: F

Offensive Line: Okay, maybe I overrated the offensive line a little bit last week. They may have had good pass blocking, but there never really have been any good holes for Willis McGahee to run through. This definitely was the case this week as they got confused and schooled by the Patriots’ aggressive defensive line. Every single time there was a little hole for McGahee, it was plugged instantly and that’s a big reason why the Bills’ running game never got moving. The pass blocking was somewhat decent this week, but they also allowed 2 sacks on Bledsoe and 1 sack on Losman at the end of the game. Grade: D-

Defensive Line: Can we ever put some pressure on the quarterback? Tom Brady didn’t just have time to make a sandwich. He had time to go to the store and buy the stuff to make it. The Patriots shut down Aaron Schobel with double coverage. When he wasn’t double covered, he was getting beat on sweeps by Corey Dillon and Kevin Faulk. Schobel finished the game with 8 tackles. Chris Kelsay didn’t do much better with the run. However, he managed to get 1 sack on Tom Brady and had 3 tackles. Sam Adams and Pat Williams plugged the middle of the line, so the Patriots decided to run around the end. About 75% of their runs were around Aaron Schobel. Pat Williams also missed a few tackles when they actually ran at him and had a total of 6. Sam Adams did the best out of all the linemen. He had 1 sack on Tom Brady, and also was in on a bunch of plays, netting 5 total tackles and helping to put some pressure on Brady. When Big Sam and Pat were out of the lineup, Justin Bannan and Ron Edwards were in and getting killed. At one point, there was a hole so big that even Drew Bledsoe would have been able to run through it for a huge gain. Grade: D-

Linebackers: This was probably one of the worst days ever for this unit. There were missed tackles by everyone. Both Takeo Spikes and London Fletcher had 11 tackles apiece, while Jeff Posey had 8. However, most of them were downfield after Corey Dillon already had 6-8 yards. Spikes and Fletcher were over pursuing for most of the game and that killed them. London Fletcher had even more trouble in pass coverage. If only the Bills had a capable secondary, then our linebackers wouldn’t be covering the receivers all the time. Grade: F

Secondary: I’m starting to miss Antoine Winfield. He may have not gotten the picks, but at least his coverage was good. Terrence McGee was burnt toast for the 2nd straight game and is definitely going to make Coach Mularkey think hard about moving Troy Vincent to free safety right away or not. McGee had 3 tackles. Nate Clements had another good day in coverage and finally got his second pick of the season. Lawyer Milloy had another solid day and made up for some of the missed tackles by the linebackers, by forcing Dillon out of bounds many times. Milloy led the team with 15 total tackles. On the other side, at free safety, both Izell Reese and Rashad Baker got burned badly. Hmm, maybe I should revisit my thought about keeping Vincent at cornerback. They may need help at cornerback, but I think more help is needed at free safety. Izell Reese’s dumb play of the game would be when he allowed Bethel Johnson to catch a 47-yard pass from Tom Brady on 3rd and 10, which setup the Patriots second field goal of the game. Reese had a chance to knock the ball out, but he wasn’t looking at the ball and had his back at Johnson. Reese ended the day with 4 tackles. Rashad Baker didn’t look any better. First, he slipped and fell in the end zone, allowing David Patten to catch a 13-yard touchdown pass. Then, he had a questionable pass interference penalty on 3rd and 3, which was a 43-yard penalty. I don’t know which is better, Terrence McGee at cornerback and Troy Vincent at free safety or Vincent at cornerback and Izell Reese at free safety. Either way, something needs to get changed soon. Let’s just hope that Troy Vincent is ready at whichever position they want him to play against the Rams. Grade: F

Special Teams: It was another good day for this unit. Penalties didn’t plague them and they even scored the only touchdown of the game. The Patriots did a good job of covering kickoffs, as Terrence McGee never got a chance to run one back. He did average 22 yards on 6 returns, with a 34-yarder as his longest. Nate Clements was removed from punt returns after the special teams needed some kind of spark and they got it. Jonathan “Fast Freddie” Smith returned a Josh Miller punt for 70 yards, into the end zone for the touchdown. The Bills coverage teams did not allow the Patriots to have any big returns and did a nice job. Brian Moorman was his usual MVP self. He had 5 punts for an average of 48 yards, with a 58-yarder as his longest. Rian Lindell was not used for any field goals or extra points, as the Bills went for 2 after the Smith punt return. The Bills did show that they hardly have any confidence in Lindell as they chose not to go for the 52-yard field goal in the first drive and chose to punt instead. Overall, it was the only unit that actually played the entire game and the only unit that deserves a good grade. Grade: B+

Coaching: Mike Mularkey was out coached in almost every aspect of the game. Bill Belichick had him wrapped around his fingers the entire time and kept the Bills from following through with their game plan of running the ball and controlling the clock. Mularkey also tried to stay with the conservative offense, even when it wasn’t working. There were many times when you were left wondering why the Bills didn’t try to test the Patriots banged up secondary. On the defensive side, Jerry Gray had a bad game too. He chose to blitz too much and was burned by Corey Dillon when he did that. Gray also had problems covering the Patriots receivers and gave them too much of a cushion. The other thing that hurt was that the Bills have usually made nice adjustments in halftime each week and this time chose not to. They kept doing what wasn’t working and it didn’t help. Another questionable move was throwing JP Losman out to the wolves in garbage time. If you want to get his feet wet, that’s fine. But don’t embarrass your rookie on national television in his first ever game. I would have rather seen Shane Matthews come in. Let’s just hope the Bills can turn back around to the way they were playing over the last couple weeks. If not, it’s going to be a long game with Marc Bulger and the highflying Rams in town. Grade: F