New England 25 - Buffalo 24

Odds and ends in the immediate aftermath...

• The rust showed. Tom Brady's played 7 minutes of competitive football in the last 19 months, and the rust showed. As the game went on, he started to get comfortable. I was very surprised, though, when they said that he'd broken his personal record for completions in a game. He finished up at 39/53 for 378 yards, 2 TD, 1 pick and an 97.83 passer rating.



• I thought that the Wilfork roughing the passer call was either a bad call or the result of a poorly conceived and worded rule. His helmet was at the QB midsection, it was a clean wrap and tackle.



• I didn't care much for the Thomas roughing the passer call, either. He didn't slam Edwards to the ground, he pulled him back toward himself.



• The Schobel pick-6 was a great play by Schobel. It was also a dreadful play on Brady's part, because he was looking right there and threw it anyway, and not high enough.



• It didn't show on the scoreboard, but the Patriots dominated that game, and could easily have blown the Bills out. The Patriots punted one (1) time in the game. They missed on 4th down twice. They missed a field goal. They gave the Bills 7 points on the interception. New England won the time-of-possession battle 37:08 to 22:52. They won the yardage battle, 441-276. They had more first downs, 28-17.



• The defense gave up two long drives, and it felt at times as if they just couldn't get off the field. That was not a strictly accurate perception, as Buffalo was only 4 of 10 on third downs.

This certainly didn't look like a team headed to 16-0 again, but they're starting out at 1-0, and that's all they could really accomplish today. The important thing was coming out with the win, and that's what they did.