Patriots beat Texans on Pats’ worst game of the season
Looking to advance to a record sixth consecutive AFC championship game, the New England Patriots played host to the Houston Texans in the divisional round of the NFL playoffs. Houston entered the game as a 16-point underdog, having won only one of their previous nine games against New England. The Patriots may have had one of their worst performances of the season yet still managed to “escape” with a 34-16 victory.
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Leading the way for the Pats was Dion Lewis, as he scored three touchdowns. He became the first player in NFL playoff history to have a rushing touchdown, a receiving touchdown and a kickoff return touchdown in the same game. With LeGarrette Blount still a little banged up, Lewis lead the team in carries finishing with 13 for 41 yards. He also added two catches for 23 yards and of course the incredible 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. Unfortunately, he also had two fumbles, one of which lead to the Texans’ only touchdown.
Tom Brady completed 18 of 38 passes for 287 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. The two interceptions matched the regular season total for Brady. Julian Edelman led all receivers with eight catches for 137 yards. Chris Hogan also had a nice game with four catches for 95 yards. Logan Ryan, Duron Harmon and Devin McCourty all had interceptions.
Looking at the box score, you would think the Patriots dominated play and won easily. However, that was not the case as a few careless turnovers had the Texans within striking distance. Overall the Patriots offense never seemed quite right aside from one sparkling drive in the third quarter. After the game Tom Brady said, “It doesn’t feel great because we worked pretty hard to play a lot better than we played.”
The mood in the locker room was certainly not what you would expect from a team that just punched its ticket to the AFC Championship Game, but this is not just any team. According to reports Bill Belichick told his players after the victory that their performance wasn’t good enough to beat the Steelers or the Chiefs.
Belichick is probably right, if it wasn’t for the horribly inept play of Texans quarterback Brock Osweiler, the Patriots could have easily lost this game. Of course every team is going to have an off game from time to time and fortunately for New England the Patriots got that bad performance out of the way. You can bet that the Pats will show up prepped and ready to play next week against the Steelers.
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