Pats defense prepares for Colts
While Tom Brady picked apart the Minnesota Vikings with one of the best games of his brilliant career, the New England Patriots defense was content to dominate out of the spotlight.
Its most noticeable stretch may have been three consecutive plays in which it sacked a backup quarterback. From start to finish, though, the defense was nearly as spectacular as the quarterback who led New England to a 31-7 rout of Minnesota on Monday night.
“We had a job to do to come out here and perform and just win,” linebacker Tedy Bruschi said. “We were confident but didn’t think the score would end up like that.”
In fact, the only touchdown by the Vikings came on a punt return. Brady threw four touchdown passes. His defense had four interceptions and four sacks.
The veteran defense hasn’t allowed a touchdown in 10 quarters. It has given up just seven in seven games. The team has allowed 87 points, third fewest in the NFL.
Sunday night it faces Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts, who are fourth in the league with 205 points and come off a 34-31 win over Denver, which had yielded 44 points before that loss.
“Our football team does have a lot of versatile guys, a lot of guys that can play lot of different roles and different defenses,” said defensive end Richard Seymour. “We have the ability to move in and out of fronts and give offenses different looks.
“There is still a lot of football left to be played. Looking down the road to next week is another big game. It doesn’t get any easier.”
Manning leads the NFL in quarterback rating and is second in the league behind Donovan McNabb in yards passing and touchdown passes.
So Manning is a much tougher challenge than Vikings starter Brad Johnson, who threw three interceptions, or second-stringer Brooks Bollinger, who was greeted when he entered the game early in the fourth quarter by an attacking defense that sacked him three times before he could throw the ball.
“Sometimes,” Bollinger said, “it’s good to get in there and knocked down once and then get going.”
But he never did get going and finished with an interception on his last play.
“We knew they liked to dump it off to the running backs and tight ends,” Bruschi said. “We wanted to play those tight and not just give them 5 yards, 6 yards, or 8 yards here and sometimes they catch them and go for 10 or 15 yards.”
The Patriots haven’t allowed more than 17 points in a game this season. That happened in each of the first three games. In the four games since, they’ve given up a total of 36 points.
Around the league
The San Diego Chargers must play their next four games without outside linebacker Shawne Merriman, one of the NFL’s top young stars who decided not to appeal his suspension for testing positive for steroids. … The New York Jets insisted Curtis Martin has not yet decided to end his season, despite a published report that the NFL’s No. 4 career rusher has told members of the team he won’t return this year. … Will Peterson has a new team and a new name. The former New York Giants cornerback signed a one-year contract with the Philadelphia Eagles. He also dropped his last name and is going by William James. … The San Francisco 49ers signed cornerback Donald Strickland, adding another veteran defender to one of the NFL’s worst defenses.