The New England Patriots' primetime road win over the rival Buffalo Bills on Monday at Highmark Stadium was far from ordinary. Due to blistering winds and ice-cold temperatures, they deviated from the NFL's modern offensive gameplan, implementing a vintage ground-and-pound attack with ease.
Naturally, this outside-the-box strategy received the stamp of approval from head coach Bill Belichick. And his conviction in running the ball and limiting rookie Mac Jones to just three pass attempts reminded longtime columnist Peter King of the time he once explored Belichick's personal football library.
"In the middle of all these tomes about the origins of football -- biographies of Bronko Nagurski and things like that -- was a thin book called, 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu," King told The DA Show on Wednesday. "He goes, 'Well, you learn something from every book.' I asked him what he learned from that one, and he sort of shrugged and he said, 'Don't go to war when the ground is muddy.' Something to chuckle about. In essence, that's what he did the other night.
"He understood that the biggest part of that game was, it was going to be a ground war. This was almost before airplanes were invented. Whatever you did, you were going to have to capture little increments of ground, doing it the way teams did it 100 years ago. Scratch and claw and get every inch of ground you could. And that's the way he coached that game..."
Taking the ball out of Jones' hands in brutal wind gusts paid off. New England rushed for a season-high 222 yards on 46 carries against Buffalo, and midway through the first quarter, they drew first blood with a 64-yard touchdown from Damien Harris. From start to finish, Jones racked up just 19 passing yards, and according to ESPN Stats & Info, his three attempts were the fewest in a game in franchise history.
The Bills' offensive strategy, which featured 30 passes and 25 rushes across four quarters, didn't prove effective. Their unit was limited to 99 yards on the ground, and star quarterback Josh Allen completed 15 passes for 145 yards with one touchdown. Following the game, Bills head coach Sean McDermott described the game as "sloppy," and was reluctant to give Belichick most of the credit for the Patriots' success in harsh weather.
With the win, New England (9-4) extended its winning streak to seven games, and the team enters its Week 14 bye with sole possession of first place in the AFC East and the No. 1 playoff seed. According to FiveThirtyEight projections, the Patriots currently have a 45-percent chance to clinch the first-round bye and a conference-best 14-percent chance to reach Super Bowl 56.
The entire NFL conversation between King and DA can be accessed in the audio player above.
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