Preseason Blowout / Pats 41 : Redskins 0
OK, so it’s preseason. Against the Redskins, who have yet to win a pre-season game. But 41-zip is impressive. Especially on the heals of the 30-3 win against Arizona last week. The numbers are impressive too. 7 sacks. 464 yards off total offense, 170 of that on the ground. Four rushing TD’s. Perfect kicking game (2 FG’s, 5 PAT’s). Opponent held to 154 yards of total offense. Pats offense ran 38 passing plays and 38 rushing plays.
And this win is significant in a number of ways, given the kind of talk about the Pat’s you see on ESPN and SI. They ran up 460 yards of offense without Deion Branch. Sure, they could have probably done more with him in there, but 10 players caught passes – mixing RB’s, TE’s, and WR’s almost evenly as usual. With that kind of balanced attack, so what if they don’t have a typical “#1 Receiver” right now? And with the running backs they have now – most of whom catch passes very well – they no longer need to rely on Brady’s arm.
The Pat’s gave Branch a release to seek a trade to another team this week. I can’t say what that means. Maybe they just said: “If you can get that kind of money from another team, go for it – if not, you report to Foxboro on September 2nd.” Which seems like a sound business move for all concerned. Either way, Branch and his agent should be recalculating their options right about now because the Patriots offense is humming along just fine.
Seven sacks is an impressive tally. Rodney Harrison and Richard Seynmour were back in the line-up, and Junior Seau played his first game as a Patriot. I think just their presence on the field cranked up the defense that extra notch.
The signs are there for an interesting Patriots season. They’re back to their form of a couple years ago – stifling defense and balanced attack.
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