![]() ![]() Playing without starting safeties Devin McCourty (ankle) and Patrick Chung (foot), New England struggled in the back end right up until Eric Decker beat Malcolm Butler for the game-winning touchdown in overtime. It was a tough day against a tough defensive front. The offensive line didn't open up much room and the running backs couldn't make much happen with the limited push. The only guys who averaged better than 4 yards a carry were wide receivers Brandon LaFell and Martin, who had single runs of 9 and 6 yards, respectively. Steven Jackson made his debut with seven carries for 15 yards, including a 7-yard long. Bolden led the way with nine attempts for just 30 yards, including a 13-yard long. Overall New England rushed 22 times for 63 yards and a 2.9-yard average. Seven different Patriots carried the ball in Sunday's loss, none had any consistent production. It was a struggle throughout for Brady and the bulk of his targets. New England had just a single third-down conversion on the day, a season-low 286 yards and one or fewer first downs on four of its nine possessions (not including a regulation-ending kneel-down) on the day. Brady was sacked twice, hit five times and harried to the point that he was falling away from throws and diving to avoid contact from the Jets front. James White caught all five balls thrown his way for 28 yards, including a wide-open score on the only offensive touchdown of the day. Rob Gronkowski was solid in limited chances, including a pair of fourth-down conversions in the fourth quarter on the way to the game-tying score, tallying four catches for 86 yards. Martin finished with a team-high seven catches for 68 yards on his 11 targets, while Bolden had five catches for 30 yards. Eighteen of Brady's 31 attempts were directed at little-used receiver Keshawn Martin and fill-in running back Brandon Bolden. Brady completed 22 of 31 passes for 231 yards with one touchdown and one interception - to Darrelle Revis on an apparent miscommunication with Rob Gronkowski - for an 89.6 passer rating. He was without both Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola in New York, and the offense sputtered against a solid Jets defense. Tom Brady simply isn't working with a full arsenal right now. How does New England go about accomplishing those goals, which, at times, differ? Well, that's a tough decision that Belichick will have to make. That could come as early as this coming Sunday in Miami with the Patriots looking to close out the season by staying healthy and, ideally, clinching the No. Maybe he's wrong, as has been the case often in the past.Įither way, the New England boss won't hesitate to make a tough, non-traditional decision next time the opportunity presents itself. Maybe he's right, as has been the case often in the past. Like what are we talking about here? What should have happened that didn't happen or whatever? I don't know."īelichick clearly doesn't think the outcome of the game in New York would have been any different had he made a different decision to open overtime. "Seems like much ado about nothing, for me. Clete came over to me after the toss and said, 'You got what you wanted here, right?' And I said, 'Yeah, exactly.' "That's why when I was asked after the game, 'Was there confusion on the play?'. ![]() For that exact reason, so there wouldn't be any confusion about what was going on," Belichick said. If there was, it was very minimal and not really worth taking a goal over."īelichick also noted that he indeed informed the officials prior to the overtime coin toss that he preferred to kick off. But in the end the direction of the goals, I don't think there was really any wind advantage. And, again, I don't know exactly what happened out there at midfield, but we obviously didn't have the choice of goals, they did, but we talked about that sideline because that could have been our choice had the coin toss gone differently. What I didn't want to do was defend a goal and then have them choose to kick off. Honestly it didn't really make any difference," Belichick said. 2, if we didn't win the toss, that we had the preferred direction. "The discussion was that we wanted to kick off, No. Pro Bowl special teams captain Matthew Slater seemed concerned when he told referee Clete Blakeman that he wanted to kick off and then was told he was not also allowed to pick the direction. Though that answer doesn't specify the reason for the decision, Belichick did make it clear that there was no confusion as to which direction the Patriots wanted to play in overtime.
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