Patriots Vs. Bills First Half Thoughts

As the New England Patriots enter the half trailing 13-0 at home to the Buffalo Bills, here are some first half thoughts. 

Special Teams Lapses- The game got off to a horrendous start for New England, in a surprising way. The usually stout Patriots special teams came up lame on the initial kickoff, as rookie cornerback and kick returner Cyrus Jones received the kick a yard deep in the end zone and inexplicably broke the plain the hesitated before moving up field. From there, Jones was met by a host of Buffalo tacklers who took him down inside the 10-yard line. From there, things go worse for Jones, who took his second return attempt from four yards deep and proceeded to run right up the back of one of his blockers. Both returns forced the Patriots to start with terrible field position and ended up putting Buffalo in good field position on ensuing punts. While New England usually forces their opponents into poor decision making situations on special teams, but so far today its been the Pats with issues in the third phase of the game.

Beating Themselves- The Patriots have done a tremendous job of beating themselves so far today. While the Buffalo offense has played better than was expected coming in to the game, New England has inflicted a lot of their own wounds so far. Between the issues they've had on the kick return unit and penalties on both offense and defense, they've given the Bills extra opportunities to score and have taken potential points off the board for themselves. A great example of the uncharacteristically shaky mental and physical lapses for New England so far, are the multiple times that they've been flagged for being offside on defense today.

Getting Worked- The Patriots defense, which of course is coming off of a dominating shutout performance last Thursday over the Houston Texans, has not looked great against a pretty bad Buffalo Bills offense today. Coming into the game, Buffalo entered as the league's worst passing offense, averaging just 163.7 yards per game through the air. Seems like New England never got the memo though, as Bills' quarterback Tyrod Taylor has already thrown for 165 yards and a score on 17 of 22 passing through just two quarters. Overall, the Bills have scored on three of their first four drives of the day, totaling 251 total yards and racking up 16 first downs on 40 plays. They have also connected on four of their first seven third down attempts today.

Slow Moving Offense- With the late news that Jimmy Garoppolo would not be active for the Pats today, it was made clear that rookie Jacoby Brissett would be making his second start in as many weeks. The combination of Brissett being the starter and tough starting field position has seemingly hamstrung the New England offense so far, as they have gained just 98 total yards and two first downs on 17 first half plays. They did make it into the red zone late in the second quarter thanks to a 58-yard pass and catch from Brissett to tight end Martellus Bennett. However they suffered some bad luck thanks to the ineptitude of the referees and ultimately turned the ball over as Brissett tried to make to much happen on a third down scramble. They'll need to find some inventive ways to get the ball moving down field, if they want to make a second half comeback at home.