Bill Belichick played the game of his dreams on Monday night.
In a to-the-wire 14-10 win over the Buffalo Bills, the New England Patriots threw the ball three total times due to winds that hit up to 55 MPH. Mac Jones had two completions for 19 yards and the Patriots had 222 rushing yards on 46 attempts. It was old school football that led to some security at the No. 1 spot in both the division and conference for New England.
Belichick joined WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” on Monday morning and further elaborated on the unique game plan.
“Again, I think if it had been a different type of game and we would have needed to throw there in the fourth quarter then we would have thrown,” he said. “We were able to manage the game the way we did and that worked out all right for us.”
The Patriots were playing chess and they utilized the second and fourth quarter in which the wind was against their backs. Those would have been the times to let Jones loose as a passer, but they stuck to the ground game faithfully.
“We were talking about that last night. We can use our whole passing game. All the pass plays we have, they haven’t seen,” Belichick said jokingly.
“I think anytime you play a team almost in succession like we do here, twice in three weeks, or whatever it is, you just have to be careful and realize that even though it’s the same two teams, it’s not the same game. There will be players who play in the next game who didn’t play in this one and probably vise-versa. The game will take a different course and the conditions will probably be different too, so [that will probably have] something to do with it. We’re starting all over at that point and when we get to them, we get to them. It’s Indy first, but we can’t assume that things are going to go like they did last night. It will be a completely different game.”
The Patriots have a bye week and then they’ll play the Indianapolis Colts, with the Bills coming to Foxborough shortly after. As Belichick said, the next game could and likely will look much different.
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