Amendola, Brady lead Pats over Jets

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Or, to put it another way: What happens when one of the NFL's top offenses meets the league's top defense with first place in the AFC East on the line?

The Jets controlled nearly every aspect of Sunday afternoon's game against the Patriots at Gillette Stadium ... through the first three quarters, anyway. In that span, the Jets dominated time of possession, 27:56-17:04; they converted eight of 12 third downs, a 67 percent success rate (compared to five of 13 for New England, 38 percent); they forced New England receivers to drop multiple pass attempts from quarterback Tom Brady. Throughout the game, the Jets forced the Pats to almost completely forgo a running game. Brady was New England's leading rusher for the first time in his career, with four runs for 15 yards.

But as we have seen so many times in Brady's career, he is often at his best when his back is up against a wall.

With the Patriots trailing by four points in the fourth quarter -- their largest fourth-quarter deficit of the season -- Brady was 14-for-17 for 150 yards and two touchdowns, giving New England a 30-23 win to stay unbeaten at 6-0. Brady finished at 34-of-54 for 355 yards. It was his 68th career game passing for 300 or more yards, the fourth such game of 2015. Only Peyton Manning, with 92, and Drew Brees (90) have more such games than Brady.

It is the third time in team history and first time since 2007 the Patriots have started 6-0.

Much of the credit for that goes to wide receiver Danny Amendola. The only one of New England's receivers not charged with a drop in the game, Amendola had eight receptions for 86 yards. The longest was a 23-yard reception in the second quarter, but the biggest was an eight-yard touchdown reception with 7:22 left in the game to give the Patriots a 23-20 lead.

"It's just a play that we've been working on for a long time and they gave us the coverage that we like and it ended up working out," Amendola said of his touchdown.

He also had a punt return, for 11 yards, and three kickoff returns for 83 yards.

"Danny made some great plays, like he always does for us -- big catches over the middle, big catch on the sideline," said Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. "He did a good job inside there like he always does, gave us some field position in the return game as well."

The catch on the sideline that Belichick mentioned? That will probably be the one most talked about after the game. About four minutes after his touchdown reception, Amendola was again targeted by Brady, the ball appearing to sail high above the Pats wide receiver. But Amendola went up just as high, reaching over Jets corner Buster Skrine for the catch. That play set up a Rob Gronkowski touchdown reception with 1:18 left to seal the win.

"[The Jets] manned it up a lot on that drive, specifically," Amendola said. "And we need to score -- had to score. Gronk made a great play right there at the end to get the ball in the end zone."

"We made the plays when we needed to make them," Brady said of Amendola's performance. "There were a lot of throws I wish I would've made better throws on. All the receivers, they want to make every play, too. So [we've] just got to do a better job with execution, and I have a lot of trust in all those guys and a lot of confidence in everything that they're doing. So we've just got to try to do it better against Miami."

The Jets fell to 4-2.

"It's frustrating because we lost," said Jets head coach Todd Bowles. "Nobody wants to lose -- especially us. We've got to go look at film. We've got to get over it. We are 4-2. We've got to get ready for Oakland next week. We can't hang our hat on it too much.

"It's always difficult to defend when you've got good players at good positions and you've got to stop them from making plays. We made some plays and they made some plays, and they made a lot more than we did in the second half and that's why they won."

In his last two games Amendola has 15 catches for 191 yards. In his first four games he had 10 catches for 98 yards.

The Patriots have a quick turnaround, hosting Miami on Thursday night.

"It's tough," said Amendola. "But we have a great coaching staff, great players here that can get ahead in preparation and get on to Miami."

* * *

Maureen Mullen is the sports editor of the Daily Item in Lynn, Mass. She is also the author of Diary of a Red Sox Season, 2007 with the legendary Johnny Pesky, and Yogi Was Up with a Guy on Third, conversations with 53 of the 64 living Hall of Famers.

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/155530656/patriots-beat-jets-danny-amendola-great-catch