Texans bracing for Brady, Patriots offense

With no one else open while facing third and 5, Brady elected to throw to Amendola in double coverage rather than chucking the ball away to take the field goal.

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady watches from the sideline during the second half of an NFL football game against the Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, Dec. 6, 2015, in Foxborough, Mass.

“Did they lose Brady?”

“It’s just wasted energy to talk about the playoff picture”, Philadelphia coach Chip Kelly said. “I think everybody would love that”, Brady said.

The following Patriots possession they were forced to punt.

“We’ve got a pretty important game coming up, so I think that’s where we’re at”, Brady said.

“We’ve got to do a better job”, Brady said after the loss. “You really put everything you can into it, 100 percent of your energy and emotion, and then you go out and you try to do it again”.

Less than a week ago, the Patriots were chasing an undefeated season. Elias Sports Bureau research notes that that is the second-longest streak without losing three straight games in National Football League history behind the San Francisco 49ers, who went 291 games without three consecutive losses from 1980-99. The Pats had five players lined up to the right of Ebner and Stephen Gostkowski to match up against four Eagles, who were stacked at the line and left 25 yards of free real estate behind them. Not to mention a couple of touchdown passes from Sam Bradford, who returned after missing the previous two games.

“I’m going to do whatever I can, whether it’s blocking, catching, running”. With the AFC playoff picture suddenly becoming so tight, they need every win they can get.

In 2006 the Patriots dropped two straight games to the Indianapolis Colts and New York Jets. Rowe replaced Nolan Carroll after the cornerback sustained a season-ending injury; the rookie allowed two touchdowns in the 14 snaps he covered Johnson. The problem with Murray is two fold: the handoffs from the shotgun are not allowing Murray to get going downhill before contact, resulting in stymied runs. “He’s unbelievably smart. He is the best quarterback I’ve ever seen”.

“Just overall we obviously didn’t do anything well enough today”.

FAMILIAR FOES: The Eagles and Patriots held joint practices in the preseason in 2013 and 2014.

New England was dominated on special teams, giving up a blocked punt and a punt return for touchdowns. But yesterday’s win might help Kelly keep his job, if his team can continue to play at that level, according to CBS Boston. He’s seen Belichick make several decisions like this over his years during his time in the broadcast booth, and said it was the head coach trying to take advantage of an Eagles team that hadn’t been playing up to some lofty expectations throughout the season. “Their guys were working, our guys were working”. If the Patriots do secure a first round bye it will have been seven weeks.

Sproles not only returned the punt for a TD, but he also ran 15 times for 66 yards and caught four passes for 34 more before the fumble.