Brady's back bitches

For 3+ quarters last night, Tom Brady's triumphant return to the NFL was anything but by the script.

Everyone assumed that the Buffalo Bills would come into Gillette Stadium and get rolled. A team that had just fired its offensive coordinator, cut its starting left tackle and brought Terrell Owens aboard with a lame duck coach (Dick Jauron) did not seem to be a team destined to upset the Patriots.

Yet there they were, up 24-13 with 5:32 left in the fourth quarter after Trent Edwards (212 yards, 2 TDs) found Fred Jackson (140 total yards) for a 10-yard touchdown on a screen pass.

True to the form of a team that had lost 11 straight games (and 16 out of 17) to the Patriots, Buffalo completely folded.

Brady (378 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT) and the offense finally got on the same page and Ben Watson (6 catches, 77 yards) snagged an 18-yard pass to cut it to 24-19 Bills with 2:06 remaining.

The two-point conversion, a pass to Watson, was picked off which seemed like a big deal. The Pats needed to get the ball back fast, and they needed a touchdown to save this poor performance. With three timeouts and the two-minute warning, it looked like if they could force a three-and-out, they'd be in good shape.

Bills returner Leodis McKelvin had other plans though as he tried to be a hero and took the ensuing kickoff out of his own end zone. Wouldn't you know that he fumbled at the 31-yard line after Brandon Meriweather stood him up and Pierre Woods stripped him of the ball. Pats kicker Stephen Gostkowski improbably fell on the ball and the Patriots were in business.

Brady found Watson with an eerily similar pass (16 yards) and New England took a 25-24 lead with 50 seconds left. Once again, they failed to convert the two-point conversion.

Buffalo got the ball back and drove down the field but they couldn't get in field goal range and were forced to try a million laterals, which ultimately failed.

Whew.

Where to begin? Even though, the statistics were dominated by the Patriots, this was a game they had no business winning. No doubt, Dennis Green was spinning in his grave saying "the Bills let them off the hook!"

Randy Moss (12 catches, 141 yards) and Wes Welker (12 catches, 93 yards) had great games but too often, the offense seemed out of sync.

On the other side, the Pats defense lost its best player to a knee injury-Jerod Mayo in the first quarter; he never returned-and they couldn't stop Edwards or Jackson. The secondary apparently held up as Owens was held to 45 yards on two catches and Lee Evans only had 25 yards on three catches.

Clearly Jauron was up to his vanilla play-calling best with the assortment of screens, short passes and counter plays.

Only time will tell if the Bills are as bad as most think they'll be and if the Patriots turn out to be as great as most (myself included) believe.

Shawn Nelson put Buffalo up 7-0 in the first quarter on an 11-yard catch from Edwards.

New Patriot Fred Taylor tied it in the second quarter with a 1-yard run.

Aaron Schobel (who Matt Light makes look like Reggie White) turned in the individual play of the game when he made a one-handed interception of a Brady pass in the second quarter and rumbled 26 yards for the score.

Every single time something bad happen to the Patriots, they'd zoom in on some yahoo fan with the look of someone that had just seen their team lose in the Super Bowl. Relax idiots. It's a long season and as far as a I know, we still have Bill Belichick (patrolling the sidelines in his customary cut-off hoodie) and Brady.

Gostkowski's 20-yard field goal at the end of the first half made it 14-10 Bills but the Patriots were lucky it was that close since they didn't convert on fourth down during their first drive and Gostkowski missed a 41-yard field goal.

Rian Lindell's 40-yard kick put the Bills up 17-10 in the third quarter and Gostkowski answered early in the fourth with a 28-yard kick which set the stage for the ridiculous ending.

If Mayo is out for an extended period of time, that's a big problem. For a defense that lost Tedy Bruschi, Mike Vrabel, Richard Seymour and Rodney Harrison in the offseason, its unclear who will be a playmaker for that defense. Especially one not named Mayo.

It should be another tight divisional game on Sunday afternoon as the Patriots travel to the Meadowlands to play the Jets. New York looked great in week 1, winning at Houston in Mark Sanchez's NFL debut. The Jets defense is good enough to shut New England down if they're offense doesn't work out the kinks this week in practice.

And that's a wrap: the 11-5 Patriots sit out January

I promise not to whine, too much. The New England Patriots finished 11-5 with their 13-0 shutout of the Bills yesterday and yet they didn't advance to the playoffs. They are the first team since the playoffs expanded to 12 teams to miss out with 11 wins.

Since the loss to the Steelers, the Patriots' playoff fate was partially out of their hands. They won their last four games (and were playing their best football of the season) but they still needed the Ravens to lose to the Jaguars or the Jets to beat the Dolphins. As expected, neither scenario came through.

I could go on (and on and on) about how pathetic Brett Favre is (retire already) or that Eric Mangini is a terrible coach (he was fired this morning) but I'll leave that to everyone else in New England. This was the first season in a while that the AFC East was competitive and the fact that the AFC West and NFC West were terrible is irrelevant. Division strength is cyclical in football and there were two losses you can point to (Colts, Jets) that if the Pats had pulled out, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

For the third week in a row, the Patriots had to play in ridiculous weather. They won in the pouring rain in Oakland. They dominated in a snowstorm last weekend at Gillette against the disinterested Cardinals and finally yesterday they won in god-forsaken Upstate New York where the winds were 30-40 m.p.h with gusts up to 50.

In likely his last game for New England, Matt Cassel only attempted eight passes but he still was outstanding and showed just how far he's come since September. He finished 6 of 8 for 78 yards with 19 yards rushing on three attempts (including two fourth-down conversions).

I've never seen a game where it mattered so much if you had the wind at your back. Stephen Gostkowski made a 33-yard kick in the first quarter and the Patriots led 3-0 at the half.

The Bills' miserable end to the season was best summed up by their last possession of the second quarter. With time running out (and no timeouts left), they ran the ball in the Patriots' red zone then took too much time to get back to the line before the clock showed zeros. Dick Jauron is from Swampscott, two towns over from my hometown, but he's clearly over his head.

Sammy Morris (20 carries, 84 yards) and LaMont Jordan (20 carries, 64 yards) continued their fine late-season play. If they could both stay healthy consistently (a huge if), I'd much rather prefer them over the more talented but enigmatic Laurence Maroney.

Jordan plunged in from two-yards out in the third quarter. It turned out to be the game's only touchdown as the inept Bills couldn't get out of their own way.

Marshawn Lynch sat out but backup running back Fred Jackson (27 carries, 136 yards) was great.

Gostkowski added a 23-yard kick in the fourth. He had a solid day even though he missed a 26-yard field goal in the second quarter and almost missed an extra point. The missed field goal was right down the middle then the wind hooked it wide right. During the extra point, the wind almost completely knocked it down as it barely went over the crossbar.

You're only kidding yourself if you think the Patriots would have won the Super Bowl this season with all their injuries and obvious flaws but with the way they'd been playing over the last month, it would have been interesting to see what Cassel would have done in the playoffs. Especially if they won the AFC East and hosted a home game or two.