Perfect day for imperfect football

WEEK 3

Patriots 38. Bills 30 (9/26/'10): As Mark and I stood in the parking lot on a beautiful late-September Sunday eating pulled-pork sandwiches (served in a sauce of apple cider vinegar, mustard, ketchup, hot pepper, and brown sugar) with homemade cole slaw, we both agreed the Pats needed to not just beat the very beatable Bills, they needed to look sharp in all phases of the game doing it.

A few cocktails later we walked into the stadium with Mark's brother Adam and his three teenage daughters (their first game) to the sounds of the Who. The much-maligned Gillette crowd was buzzing in every sense of the word. We knew that Brady wouldn't need us to be too vocal for the Pats to take Buffalo. I thought what a perfect day for Don Julio margaritas, er, I mean a perfect day for football.


It was a perfect day for football. Just not perfect football. 

WEEK 3: A win is a win.

The Pats looked sharp on offense -- putting up 38 points on 200 yards rushing and 245 passing -- and the Brady to rookie tight end Aaron Hernandez connection is fast becoming an another big weapon. As for the other phases of the game?

Well, not even a few Don Julios could make the defense and kicking game look good. The D had two interceptions (Chung, Meriweather) but only forced the Bills to punt once. The Bills -- a team that had scored a total of 17 points in its first two games -- rolled up 30 on 374 yards of offense. Buffalo had to settle for field goal attempts on four drives, and they often stopped themselves on those possessions. The Pats defense has now given up 24, 28, and 30 points. That's 82 points through three weeks. Only four teams have allowed more and they have a combined two victories. There's no disguising it. The D is not good enough. What's that? The defense really only gave up 23 points yesterday?

Right. That brings us to the other phase of the game that is not good enough. Special teams.

The Pats opened the second half with a quick, 5-play drive that ended with the second Brady-to-Moss TD pass of the day. Pats 24, Buffalo 16. Just when it looked like the Patriots had taken command of the game, the kick-coverage team allowed rookie CJ Spiller to take the ball 95 yards for a touchdown. Spiller is a fast playmaker, but the Pats special teams tackling was sad. As was Zoltan Mesko's punts. The rookie's 37.7-yard average on three punts was also not good enough

But it was an entertaining -- if not encouraging -- day at Gillette. Ben-Jarvis Green-Ellis -- with the trade of Maroney and injury to Faulk -- is now, suddenly, an important part of the offense. Against the Bills he ran for 98 yards on 16 carries with a touchdown. He looked good enough. As did the passing game of Brady, Moss, Welker, Hernandez, et al.

Enjoying the postgame hot dogs and beer with Shep and Matt, I started thinking about the play of the offensive line (solid as always), the running game, young players like Hernandez, McCourty, and Chung. I started to feel optimistic about the team's chances of going into Miami next Monday night and finally -- finally! -- getting the big road win.

Then I got home and turned on the Dolphins-Jets Sunday night game. What a game. Two great defenses each gave up more than 400 yards and yet made big plays when needed. Two questionable offenses showed they have the mental toughness to put together long, crucial drives. Both teams played at a much higher level than the Pats. As the Jets defense made the last big play to pull out a huge road win, I thought are the Pats good enough to win a game like that?

At the moment: No. Not good enough.