Patriots Overcome Slow Start, Beat 49ers 30-17

They played in the Super Bowl seven weeks later and lost to the Ravens, who beat the Patriots in the AFC championship game.

And when the game ended, a rainbow had emerged over the entire stadium – a fitting cap to Brady’s fine afternoon of football.

“It doesn’t get any better than that”, Brady said after the game. “If we can get a win next week, we’ll feel better about ourselves in the locker room”.

While Brady’s runs don’t exactly look like Ezekiel Elliott blasting through a defensive line, this year, he’s gaining more yardage on his feet than ever before. So it was pretty great.

Ultimately, it didn’t come back to bite them, but in the bigger picture the Patriots’ handling of the final drive before halftime didn’t suggest the coaching staff has great confidence in its group at this point. They always have and it inspired a lot of kids here in the Bay Area in my time growing up and I was one of them.

Brady sealed the win with a 56-yard touchdown pass to Malcolm Mitchell with 10:06 remaining, getting the throw off a split second before getting hit from behind by Ahmad Brooks.

In 2016, 49ers quarterbacks have completed 151 out of 277 passes (54.5 percent), while racking up 1,728 yards, 11 touchdowns and eight interceptions.

He then marched them 75 yards over 12 plays for another touchdown in the fourth quarter.

The touchdown is the first of Mitchell’s career. “To see Tom Rathman before the game”.

LaGarrette Blount’s Big Day: The Niners made a concerted effort to stop the Patriots running game today and at times were able to hold them to minimal gains, but the running game got untracked and Blount put up big numbers.

“Like I said before, the guy’s unbelievable”, said Bryant, who had six catches for 80 yards in his first two-score game since his All-Pro season of 2014. Running back LeGarrette Blount ran all over a historically bad 49ers rushing defense for 123 yards. Kaepernick, who entered the game completing only 53.0 percent of his passes, finished 16 of 30 (53.3 percent) for 206 yards.

Brady and Edelman grew up in the Bay Area and were playing their first game at Levi’s Stadium. Even though Colin Kaepernick has shown some improvement since regaining his starting spot from Blaine Gabbert, the belief is that the enigmatic quarterback and the Niners will be parting ways after the season. Only journeyman QB Vinny Testaverde has thrown touchdowns to more unique receivers over the course of his career (70!). He also had a 21-yard third-down pick up on an earlier scoring drive, which suggests Brady wasn’t shy about looking in his direction on crucial downs.

PATS PASS RUSH: Five Patriots had sacks on Kaepernick: Patrick Chung, Malcolm Butler, Kyle Van Noy, Dont’a Hightower and Rob Ninkovich.

Last week, coach Bill Belichick alluded to “a certain buildup process” likely being needed for any player coming off as long an absence as Lewis. “Off the pressure, finding him in the back of the end zone, that was a tremendous play”.

Stephen Gostkowski hit a 38-yard field goal with 6:13 left, increasing New England’s lead to 30-10. He missed a 2008 game at The Stick because of a season-ending knee injury.

This is his sixth National Football League season and he had never sat out previously.

The 49ers committed 10 penalties for 68 yards on Sunday, but the Patriots had a few themselves.