Fun with small sample sizes

[berndogg]

Ellis Hobbs came in on a corner blitz, nailed Losman and knocked the ball loose. Jarvis Green recovered on the Bills 35 and New England was poised to take an early lead.

 

They did just that but only by a 24-yard field goal by Stephen Gostkowski. The Patriots had three tries from first and goal but a Maroney run for a loss of one and two Brady incompletes caused by good Bills coverage forced the field goal unit on the field.

 

With Losman on the sideline working out his sore knee, the Bills were forced to bring in Trent Edwards, a rookie out of Stanford. Edwards did more than just an adequate job, driving the Bills 80 yards for the game's first touchdown. He hit Roscoe Parrish for 13 yards on third and 8 from the 44 and then followed up that play with a 21 yard completion to Josh Reed down to the Patriots 22. On third and 8 from the 8, Lynch bulled his way in, breaking two tackles along the way and Buffalo took a 7-3 lead late in the first quarter.

 

The first quarter ended with the Patriots on the Bills 30-yard line due mainly to a Faulk 11-yard run on a nice counter play and a 15-yard penalty on the Bills Angelo Crowell for unnecessary roughness. Despite that, the Patriots offense suddenly looked a little out of sorts. Faced with a fourth and 7 from the 29, New England went for the first down but Brady's pass to Faulk was a yard short of the stick and the Bills took over.

 

After that the starters were removed, so here's what we can tell. The Bills are clearly a better team than the pats both offensively and defensively. Trent edwards will carve up secondaries with his percise passing all year and the bills will be deadly in the redzone thanks to marshawn lynch. The defense will stop the run consistently and brady will have a very tough time finding open receivers, especially in the redzone thanks to buffalo's outstanding secondary. If the starters played the entire game, buffalo would win 28-12.