Patriots Sport Blue, Win 41-7

Wait, Bill Belichick smiles? Must be the blue!

For the first time this year, the Patriots sported their blue jerseys, and the resulting good karma helped to propel them to a 41-7 romping of the Denver Broncos. This game was a classic Pats victory, complete with stifling defense, key turnovers, commitment to the running game, and a good short passing game. The defense looked phenomenal all game long, resulting in the following results for the Broncos' first half possessions: fumble, fumble, punt, punt, interception, fumble.

Matt Cassel even looked good. He got Randy Moss involved early and often, tossing two touchdown passes to him over the course of the game. This was perhaps the most important result of the game, because if Randy goes without a good game for another couple weeks, you can be sure he's going to stop running routes and blocking downfield. Randy seems to have changed his tune since coming to Boston, but the familiar "I'm quitting on my team" movement is still in the undertones of this new Moss ditty.

But back to Cassel. He is no Brady in ball distribution, with 78% of his passes going to Moss, Wes Welker, and tight end Ben Watson. He only had 185 yards through the air, but had 3 TDs - and if someone has 19 fantasy points that probably means they had a pretty good day. He still holds the ball way too damn much and takes too many sacks because of it, but that might be something we're going to have to get used to.

But the story of the day was Sammy Morris. On a day where Laurence Maroney went on the IR (man, we got the wrong guy from Minnesota in that draft [Marion Barber]), Sammy Morris showed that he is up for shouldering the load as a starter, running for 138 yards and a touchdown in the first half alone. He was injured during the end of the second quarter, and undrafted free agent BenJarvus Green-Ellis (what a fricken name. What is with names today? What ever happened to Eddy and Shawn?) ran 13 times in the second half for 65 yards. He never looked quite as good as Morris, but he got the job done against a weak Denver run defense. So perhaps it wasn't Morris and the running game as much as it was Denver being soft.

In other injury News, Rodney Harrison got his cleat caught in the field when trying to pivot and looked to hurt his knee on the play (AGAIN!? This guy hurts his knee every year, it seems). He had to be carted off the field, and we'll have more info on his injury as it comes.

But overall, it was a solid, dominating wins for the Pats, something we really needed to see from this team. The Pats host the suddenly hot St. Louis Rams next Sunday at 1:00.

A line I forgot to add last Pats article: You stay classy, Whale's Vagina.

INJURY UPDATE: Rodney Harrison tore his quadriceps and will have season ending surgery, the Globe reports. Sammy Morris also hurt his knee in the game but his status is not yet known.

Written by Kyle "THE BAD MAN PUNTED" Baxter