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November 26, 2007

After a Bunch of Blowouts, Pats Almost Blew It

Nine of the Patriots' first 10 wins this season were blowouts.
Although they won again Sunday night against the upset-minded Eagles, the Pats almost blew the game because of their inability to contain Philly's backup quarterback, A.J. Feeley, who threw for 345 yards and three touchdowns and had his team -- 24-point underdogs in Las Vegas -- on top, 28-24, in the fourth quarter
"You're not going to be able to play your best game every week," New England's veteran strong safety Rodney Harrison said. "The thing that's encouraging is that we were able to pull it out, in spite of us not playing particularly well."
"You have to win like this sometimes," said Patriots wide receiver Jabar Gaffney, who caught Tom Brady's only touchdown pass. "You're not going to blow everyone out."
Brady had ignited those blowouts by throwing for at least three TDs in each of the Pats' first 10 games. Although he passed for 380 yards against the Eagles, completing 34 of 54 attempts, he had one TD toss.
"Everybody could have played better," Brady said. "But we won. We clinched the AFC East championship, we've won 11 straight games, and there's a lot to be happy about."
That was the prevailing feeling in the New England locker room after subduing the stubborn Eagles.
"We want to win the game, period," linebacker Tedy Bruschi said. "No matter how we do it -- whether it's one point, or 20 -- as long as we get that victory at the end of the day, that's all we care about."
"Everything's not going to be a blowout," said Adalius Thomas. "We're happy to get the win."
How happy the Patriots will be when they sit down to review the video of the game with coach Bill Belichick is another matter entirely.
"Philadelphia gave us a number of problems in all three phases of the game," Belichick said. "But we had a couple of big stops defensively at the end, and we made a couple of key plays offensively when we needed to make them."

Posted by Jim Donaldson  at 1:29 AM | Permalink