FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The New England Patriots have won three Super Bowls since Buffalo last made the playoffs. They’ve won their last 15 matchups and 20 of their last 21 against the Bills.
Sounds like Sunday’s game in Buffalo should be a major mismatch, right?
Wrong.
Both teams are 2-0 and the Bills lead the NFL with 79 points. So the Patriots aren’t about to take them lightly.
“You never can underestimate any team,” defensive end Mark Anderson said Monday. “They got a great start. They look very good on offense from what I’ve seen, running the ball as well as passing.”
Buffalo followed its season-opening 41-7 rout of the Kansas City Chiefs with a 38-35 win over the Oakland Raiders on Ryan Fitzpatrick’s 6-yard touchdown pass to David Nelson with 14 seconds left on Sunday. Fitzpatrick completed 28 of 46 passes for three touchdowns and an interception, and Fred Jackson ran for two scores as Buffalo overcame a 21-3 halftime deficit.
The Patriots beat the San Diego Chargers 35-21 on Sunday. Tom Brady threw for 423 yards six days after setting a club record with 517 yards passing.
Brady may have the rich resume, but Fitzpatrick has developed into a dangerous, somewhat elusive quarterback.
“The best way to play mobile quarterbacks (is to) keep containment on the edges and have the big guys give us force in the middle,” Anderson said, “and, in the secondary, applying shutdown coverage on the receivers and that’s going to allow us to get to the quarterback.”
The secondary, though, is nicked up.
One safety, Josh Barrett, played Sunday with a cast on his wrist and lower part of his hand to protect a right thumb injury. Another safety, Patrick Chung, left in the third quarter with a thumb injury but returned to the game wearing a cast. Cornerback Leigh Bodden also has been bothered by a thumb injury but played both games.
“It seems to be going around a little bit on the defensive backs,” Barrett said. “You’re not in there thinking about it at all, but just wrapping up (ball carriers), small stuff, that it can hinder and inhibit you from doing. … Obviously, there’s a bit of pain involved, but guys are out there playing with pain all the time. So you’ve got to be as physical as you can with it.”
Two other Patriots suffered knee injuries against San Diego, tight end Aaron Hernandez and Zoltan Mesko. Coach Bill Belichick provided no update on their conditions Monday. A report on boston.com said Hernandez, who had seven catches for 62 yards and a touchdown, will miss one to two weeks with a sprained medial collateral ligament, according to a league source.
If Hernandez is out, Dan Gronkowski will move up to the No. 2 tight end spot behind his brother Rob, who caught two touchdown passes on Sunday. Dan, formerly with the Denver Broncos, signed with the Patriots on Sept. 7, five days before their opener.
He said he’s ready if Hernandez isn’t.
“Definitely,” he said. “They expect me to know everything and I’m at that point. So I’m ready to get in there and just help out the team however I can.”
Mesko’s, a left-footed punter, hurt his left knee. Belichick said the injury caused the Patriots, leading 20-14, to try for a first down on fourth-and-4 at the Chargers 49-yard line. They failed and San Diego took over. Belichick said placekicker Stephen Gostkowski might have filled in for Mesko if a punt was essential.
“It would probably depend what the situation was,” Belichick said, “where the ball was, how far we were punting, that kind of thing.”
Based on the first two weeks of the season, punters may not have much work to do Sunday. New England is third in the NFL with 73 points, six behind Buffalo.
That’s quite an improvement for the Bills, who had losing records the past six seasons, haven’t won a playoff game since 1995, last reached the playoffs in the 1999 season and have just one winning season since then.
On Sunday, though, they can beat the Patriots for the first time since a 31-0 victory in the 2003 opener at Buffalo.
“By no means are we taking them lightly,” Barrett said.
Manning at Colts practice
INDIANAPOLIS — Peyton Manning made it out to practice Monday.
He’s still nowhere close to throwing yet.
The four-time MVP was in good spirits when he made his first public appearance on the field since having neck surgery Sept. 8.
“Save a copy for me for my scrapbook,” Manning joked as he walked past the television cameras filming his arrival.
Those around Manning are not elaborating about his medical recovery.
Fox Sports, citing an unnamed source, reported Sunday that Manning traveled to Europe for stem-cell treatment before his latest surgery. The procedure has not yet been approved for use in the United States.
Colts vice chairman Bill Polian and Tom Condon, Manning’s agent, both declined to comment about the report following Sunday’s 27-19 loss to Cleveland. On Monday, Manning’s surgeons followed suit and Caldwell reiterated that the team would not provide any additional details about Manning’s progress.
“Just in terms of how we’ve handled things around here, we have not discussed anything of that nature in terms of medical situations or whatever it may be,” Caldwell said. “I think, also, in (the Sept. 8) release, we stated that we’re not going to discuss anything further, and that’s where I’m going to end it.”
Dr. Gowriharan Thaiyananthan, co-medical director of the Chapman Neurosurgical and Spine Institute in Orange, Calif., said it’s possible stem-cell treatment could speed up Manning’s recovery.
But it’s still unlikely, Thaiyananthan said, that the Colts will get Manning back sooner than the current timetable.
Manning is expected to miss at least two months after having an anterior fusion to treat a nerve injury that was causing weakness in his triceps. The procedure normally involves making an incision in the front of the neck, removing soft disk tissue between the vertebrae and fusing the bones together with a graft. The goal is to ease pain or address a disk problem.
Some doctors have said the recovery can take four months or longer, which could keep Manning out all season.
“He still has to recover from a cervical fusion, so I think that will be several months,” Thaiyananthan said. “I think the hope is that he can get back to playing sports.”
The stem-cell treatment does not use embryonic stem cells, which have caused so much consternation in the U.S., but rather cells from Manning’s own body. Doctors harvest the cells, expand them and then put them into the body.
It’s a procedure Thaiyananthan believes athletes may use more frequently in the future so they can avoid surgery. He’s not alone.
“The stem cells very quickly affect the inflammation and then they’re like a factory where they will regenerate right at the site,” said Kevin Dunworth, founder and CEO of SpineSmith in Austin, Texas.
Manning had a prior surgery May 23, but that did not fix the problem.
The Colts are hoping this latest procedure will.
“He’s convalescing from the surgery and that will take a little while yet, and then at some point, the doctors will bring him back and assess his situation,” Polian said on his weekly Monday night radio show. “We’re not sure when that will take place. He’s up and around, I can tell you that. But it is surgery, and there is a period of time where it takes its toll on you, and that’s wh ere he’s at right now.”
Teammates were happy to have Manning back on the field — even if it was only as a spectator.
When five-time Pro Bowl receiver Reggie Wayne walked past reporters and saw Manning, he blurted out: “(He’s) walking it off.”
The injury ended Manning’s streak of 227 consecutive starts, including the playoffs, and without him, the Colts have not been the same.
They’re off to their first 0-2 start since 1998, Manning’s rookie season, and have scored only two touchdowns in eight quarters. Panicked fans are calling for changes, even replacing Kerry Collins who has started the first two games.
The Colts, however, are more worried about fixing the mistakes than making personnel changes.
“For the foreseeable future, it’s not going to be the high-efficiency offense that we’ve been used to,” Polian told listeners. “Kerry can’t do that, nobody can. You could probably bring back Johnny U. (Unitas) and you wouldn’t have that.”