It finally began to look like the end of Tom Brady’s dominance of Buffalo but the Bills are still incompetent on offense.
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Bills fans have been waiting for this to happen for years, and Sunday afternoon, it finally began to look like the end of Tom Brady’s dominance of the Bills, and the NFL, is upon us.
Brady is now 41 years old, and at various points this season, Gisele's husband has started to look his age.
Not that he’s Johnny Unitas playing out the string with the Chargers, a shell of his former greatness, because during New England’s 24-12 victory over Buffalo, Brady did surpass the 4,000-yard passing mark for the ninth time.
But at long last, the greatest quarterback in the history of the game is looking fallible, and his reign of terror over the Bills, Jets and Dolphins in the AFC East is nearing its conclusion. Really, I think it is.
Brady could not have been more average, dare I say below average, in this game. Buffalo held him to 126 passing yards, picked off two of his passes, and his only TD pass wouldn’t have happened if not for a heads-up play by wide receiver Julian Edelman.
However, if anyone was thinking the AFC East torch might be passed from Brady to Buffalo’s Josh Allen, sorry, not yet.
Allen’s stock-market season took another dip as he looked overwhelmed at times against Bill Belichick’s defense. He completed 20 of 41 passes for 217 yards with a TD and two picks for a rating of 52.6. He rushed for only 30 yards, and simply wasn’t up to the task of beating the Patriots in his first try.
We all knew this is what it was going to be like with Allen, at least in his rookie year. He is learning and gaining experience each week, but he remains a raw, unmolded talent who has been put in a difficult situation because he is surrounded with such incompetence on offense.
Allen made several questionable decisions, on some plays he held the ball too long in the pocket, and he was wildly inaccurate on a few throws, two of which ended up as interceptions. But he also got no help from his receivers, and while he wasn’t sacked, let’s not make the jump that the line played well, because it didn’t.
One more week to go. One more week for Allen playing with this slop around him. And then when it’s over, we wait with great anticipation to see how general manager Brandon Beane goes about bringing capable players in to help him for that time when, we hope, he finally wrests the torch away from Brady.
Whatever it was that LeSean McCoy said or did before Sunday’s game, it was far weightier than anything he did on the field.
McCoy had yet another terrible day as he gained only 9 yards on six carries and had zero impact on the game. This is nothing new in 2018 as McCoy now has seven games where he rushed for less than 25 yards, three of which were a single-digit total.
If that wasn’t bad enough, we found out after the game that the reason McCoy wasn’t on the field for the first offensive play of the game was due to a disciplinary decision by McDermott.
It must not have been too serious because McCoy was on the field for the second play, but for a guy like McCoy who pays attention to his career stats, it had to hurt that he lost a game start over this, and rookie Keith Ford got to check that box for the first time.
McCoy was asked about his future in Buffalo, which seems like it has one week left. Given the way he has played, it seems ludicrous for the Bills to consider bringing him back in 2019, though he's not buying that.
More: LeSean McCoy lost his job to an undrafted rookie. Are his days in Buffalo almost over?
Another player who is unlikely to be back in 2019 is tight end Charles Clay, and that came into crystal clear focus when he was announced as inactive, a healthy scratch.
To decipher that, it means this: Clay has been terrible all year with 21 catches for 184 yards, he has done nothing impactful, and the Bills need to see if Jason Croom and/or Logan Thomas are worth moving forward with next year.
Cutting Clay would save the Bills $4.5 million on the cap, so that seems prudent. However, one has to wonder what to make of Croom and Thomas. Croom flashes, and he had four catches for 55 yards Sunday, but he also lost his second fumble of the season in a situation where he was fighting for extra yardage and didn’t secure the ball.
Thomas had one ball thrown his way, and he failed to catch it. He has great size and athleticism, but it’s not showing up on game day.
► Player of the game: Sony Michel. The Patriots rookie running back did not play in the first game against the Bills, and now we know why the Patriots couldn’t run the ball that night at New Era Field. Michel gained 116 yards and scored a first-half touchdown.
► Play of the game: Edelman’s 32-yard touchdown catch and run. The Patriots were clinging to a 14-6 lead and had fourth-and-4. Edelman got open over the middle for the first down, and he, Jordan Poyer and Rafael Bush all went to the ground together. However, Edelman was never down, and he knew it, so he popped up and sprinted the final 15 yards to the end zone for the score that broke the game open.
► Unsung hero: Lorenzo Alexander was all over the field as he had a game-high 14 tackles, made a nice interception, and also rushed Brady into a throwaway. At 35, Alexander remains a marvel.
► Injuries: LB Julian Stanford left the game in the first quarter with an ankle injury, and WR Deonte Thompson went out in the third quarter with a toe injury. Neither player was able to return.
► What’s next: The Bills close the 2018 season at home Sunday at New Era Field against the Dolphins, who suffered a sickening 17-7 loss to Jacksonville and are now eliminated from playoff contention.