Patriots vs. Redskins: Fan Notes from the Game

I never thought I'd bored out of my skull during a Patriots game, but the Washington Redskins proved me wrong.

What a snoozer yesterday's game was. At no point was it out of hand, the Redskins couldn't get anything going outside of garbage time, the Patriots didn't play all that well but still put up almost 30, and some key, key players got hurt. Not the best look overall.

But holy jeez are we spoiled. Our double-digit wins aren't as exciting as we're used to. Cry me a river.

• The Sunday after someone calls the Patriots out for cheating on the coin toss, the Patriots lose the coin toss. Coincidence? I think not.
  
• What a beautiful November afternoon in Foxboro; sunny, low 60s, no breeze. Global Warming is looking just fine to me.
• And speaking of Global Warming - does anyone know what the leading cause of it is?
• I'm quickly running out of adjectives to describe what happens when Mr. Lewis jukes a guy out of his skivvies, so I think I'm going to just start making words up. New England's first drive had Lewis's conflaganery out of full display.
• Except, of course, for that gimme TD pass he dropped. That was most non-leglumaneous.
• Gonna blame that one on the sun. Yep, that's it.
• Not that it really mattered; Edelman scored a small handful of plays later to make both me and my fantasy team extremely happy.
• But what the hell was Keenan Robinson supposed to do on the personal foul call? Coaches should all band together and collectively decide to decline those from here on out.
  
• Holy jeez what a great first drive - 13 plays, six minutes, 85 yards, runs and passes and pinpoint accuracy from Tommy B all over the place. Didn't even hesitate to go for it on 4th down and just imposed their will.
• And then the onside kick to just kick Washington right in the face.
  
• You got the feeling, after that recovery and the opening reverse to Danny Amendola, the Patriots were more or less treating this game like a golorfied practice and decided to just try out a bunch of weird plays to see what works.
• Man do I wish this was a Monday night game so Jon Gruden could have done the commentary on it. "Boy I'll tell ya what, Mike...I just love the way that Dion Lewis makes those defenders miss. You're gonna see the Patriots run a Trips Jelly Y Right Spider here, and Dion Lewis takes advantage of those great blocks from the offensive line. I like it!"
• So...a fumble, recovered by Washington, and then immediately a pick from Logan Ryan. Does that even count?
• Plays like that are going to doom you if you're Washington. On an afternoon where you pretty much have to play a perfect game, you can't have balls bouncing off your hands like that. I don't even know how many drops the Redskins logged yesterday.
  
• What a blitz pickup by Lewis on New England's second scoring drive to extend it.  I think that was Keenan Robinson who came in on the LB blitz, and Mr. Lewis stood him right up. Robinson is 6'3", 245 lbs.
• So yeah...the offensive line is a mess. But it doesn't really matter when the balls fly out of Brady's hands at such an amazing speed. I imagine that people have just been trying to get their hands on Brady's balls for so long he has become something of an old hat at elusiveness in that particular category.
• I think that the Patriots were so dominant in this one that the NFL had to take a TV timeout for absolutely no reason just to get a few commercials in with about five minutes left in the first quarter.
• Poor Kirk Cousins. It just wasn't his day, was it. And despite the announcers' best efforts to play up how great a game he played, unfortunately most of us actually saw the game and know the truth.
  
• Tommy B is clearly processing information too quickly this season. There has to be something up. #ProcessGate
• How was Brandon LaFell so open on that long completion? Maybe the Skins took the advice of the Washington Post yesterday.
• Even with the small sample size, Sunday represented LaFell's best game of 2015 and more positive strides in the right direction in terms of getting his timing down and getting the chemistry back with Tommy B. Made some great option reads on some slant routes and got some of that elusiveness back on the quick screens.
• Tom Brady's first real INT of 2015T was simply one of those picks that he's good for every season where you just have to shake your head and know that Brady is prone to those from time to time. That pick represented the first red zone trip in 2015 that didn't result in a score and a great read from Keenan Robinson.
• It would also appear that Brady has finally found something in which he could learn a thing or two from Andrew Luck: making a big tackle after throwing an interception. Not a play I want to see Brady make for a million reasons, but credit where credit is due.
• Not much pass rush from the Patriots yesterday. Washington was strong in the blitz pickup and Cousins had way more time than he should have had to put the ball right in the position where it could bounce off his receivers' faces.
• I absolutely hate that every time any DB in the NFL makes a play, he immediately looks over to the sideline to see if he drew a DPI flag. Logan Ryan was doing it all day yesterday, and I completely get it.
• Chris Baker, one the the more underrated defensive linemen in the league, left the game in the 2nd quarter with a chest injury, and the Patriots took full advantage of it by going to Blount early and often. Baker would eventually return, but by then the running game was going too strong for it to matter.
• That Blount ran for over 100 yards yesterday behind an offensive line who was basically the equivalent of the illegally broadcast Spanish translation of The Simpsons when Homer was dressed as Krusty and they tried to confuse the Mafia is one of those storylines that should get a lot more attention than it actually will.
• What I'm hoping will get zero attention today is how ridiculous that last comparison was.
• Not a single first round draft pick was on the field for the NE offense yesterday. What a stat. Turns out we don't even need that pick the NFL took away while they were directing attention away from battered women and beaten children and players committing suicide because of CTE to make it seem like 0.5PSI was the equivalent of slaughtering a box of puppies in front of a burning orphanage.
• Still don't like Jonathan Freeney's angles as a pass rusher. He crashes the line in an arc as opposed to a straight line and gave up the edge a few times as a result. He also got stonewalled on a lot of his blocks. Hurry up and get un-sick, Jamie Collins.
  
• This was yet another game that the Patriots could have completely put away by halftime, but a handful of mistakes kept the opponent in it.
  
• How about Matt Jones? Real bright spot for Washington yesterday. Explosive first step, good YACs, and falls forward. Definitely a player to watch going forward.
  
• How does everyone think that the Patriots were cheating their way into all those Washington drops? Overinflation, maybe? Illegal lubricant? Yelling out "Noonan! Noonan!" at the last minute?
• Malcolm Butler's tackling has really improved as the season has gone on. Plays he made yesterday are plays he wouldn't have made before week four or so. Great testament to a player working hard to get better at his craft.
  
• And speaking of tackles...anyone out there in Patriots Nation feel like suiting up and protecting Brady's blind side? We could really use you. Fellow fat New Englanders, assemble!
  
• In spite of the lack of depth at offensive line, the Patriots still utilized the out empty set and gave Tommy B enough time to move the chains. Against a fiercer pass rush, there might be some problems, but considering there were guys out there literally learning their position on the fly, that's one helluva job.
  
• Bryan Stork, man...talk about getting thrown right back in it. Starting center, put on IR, thrown right back into it, forced into starting at tackle.
• I told you New England didn't need an offensive line. Taking a page from Indy's playbook.
• Was Andrew Luck in the stands yesterday?
• How many times did Fox replay all of those Redskins drops? We get it, guys; lots of drops. Moving on.
• That Jerod Mayo didn't see a lot of time yesterday make zero sense to me. I can't imagine that Freeney is a better option than Mayo, unless he still isn't healthy. That's the only explanation I can think of.
  
• Oh no. No no no no no. That Lewis injury had "bad news" written all over it. Anytime a runner plants his foot and then falls down basically untouched while clutching his knee before walking off the field in tears to be embraced by his teammates and coaches, he isn't likely to be back anytime soon. Absolutely monster loss if he misses extended time. I almost wish he had gotten carted off so I wouldn't be spending all this time deluding myself that he just tweaked his knee and everything is going to be fine.
  
• But please, Mr. Goodell. Let's hear your reasoning for an 18 game season again. I'm curious to know how it will positively impact player safety and league-wide integrity.
• Early reports are MCL sprain for Lewis, which is tremendous news if true. Here's a live look at me listening to anyone who says different.
• Really impressed with the Washington blitz pickup. Granted, New England didn't do anything all that creative with the blitz packages, but they weren't able to get to Cousins at all.
• Is it bad that I don't want Gronk to play another snap until the playoffs now?
• Once the fourth quarter started, it seemed like the Patriots just wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible and handed it off to Blount and Brandon Bolden over and over again on the most vanilla run plays you'll ever see. And I had zero problem with that. This was one of those games that you just want to end.
• The Lewis injury was painted all over the faces of every player on the field yesterday, wasn't it? Everyone did their job and expressed zero emotion about any of it. Even the Bolden TD to seal the game was lackluster.
• Phew! The Pats almost made it through a game without a penalty on a punt. Glad to see some late game heroics by Pat Chung.
• More garbage time yards from a Patriots opponent. If baseball can have stats that allow various factors not to count against certain players, why can't they do that for football?
• Duron Harmon too? COME ON!!!
• What a depressing stat: seven straight games with a TD pass is the most for Washington since 1983.
• Less depressing stat? 8-0. Yet another season without a losing record clinched, and were' still in early November.

It's always good to get a win...but you have to wonder what the price of this one was. Here's hoping for some good news all along all injury fronts this week.