A FIRED-UP Tom Brady notched another milestone NFL win on Sunday as the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots powered past the Buffalo Bills 23-3.
Brady connected on 21 of 30 passes for 258 yards as he notched his 27th career victory over the Bills. He broke Brett Favre’s league record for most quarterback wins against a single opponent.
Brady also joined Favre, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees as the only NFL quarterbacks with at least 65,000 career passing yards.
The Patriots improved to 10-2 — their 15th straight seasons with at least 10 wins — but it wasn’t always pretty.
New England didn’t score a touchdown in the first half for the first time this season and Brady’s frustration boiled over with some choice words for offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels after the Pats’ first field goal.
Rex Burkhead rushed for two touchdowns. Tight end Rob Gronkowski caught nine passes for 147 yards but delivered an ugly late hit on Bills cornerback Tre’Davious White with the game well in hand in the fourth quarter.
White was evaluated for a head injury after intercepting Brady late in the fourth. Gronkowski drove his shoulder into White as he lay face down on the turf after the whistle.
“There is no room in this league for that type of crap,” Bills safety Jordan Poyer said, and Gronkowski himself was apologetic after the game.
“I was just really frustrated at that moment,” Gronkowski said. “I don’t really believe in those type of shots.”
The Bills lost for the fourth time in five games. Making matters worse, Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor was carted to the locker room with a knee injury early in the fourth quarter.
The Minnesota Vikings also notched an eighth straight win, downing the Falcons 14-9 in Atlanta.
The Ravens notched a big win in Baltimore, where Joe Flacco threw two touchdown passes and Alex Collins ran for a two scores in a 44-20 victory over the Detroit Lions.
The Ravens boosted their playoff hopes with a third straight win, but will make their stretch run without cornerback Jimmy Smith, who suffered a season-ending Achilles tendon injury.
Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, making his third career start and first for the 49ers, came away with a 15-14 victory over the Chicago Bears after veteran kicker Robbie Gould booted his fifth field goal of the game with four seconds remaining.
The field goal capped a 14-play, 86-yard drive directed by Garoppolo and gave the 49ers their first away win of the season.
In Green Bay, Aaron Jones rushed for a 20-yard touchdown with 5:59 left in overtime to lift the Packers to a 26-20 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The New York Jets beat the Kansas City Chiefs 38-31 on Josh McCown’s touchdown plunge from a yard out with 2:10 left to play.
The Chiefs lost for the sixth time in seven games and are now tied atop the AFC West with the surprising Los Angeles Chargers, who beat the Cleveland Browns 19-10.
- © AFP 2017
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Not impressed with a Qatar link up. Retrograde move given the track record with World Cup and recent sportswashing controversies.
@Andy Heffernan: they don’t give a sh!te about those minor considerations…. follow the money.
What a bizarre move? Has dollar signs written all over it. Better thing to do, would have been to bring games to countries like spain and portugal, which are getting better at rugby and have some local interest.
As has been pointed out by some on twitter. Nick McCarthy couldn’t even travel to Qatar with Leinster without fear of being imprisoned. Would be nice to see other players/teams boycott any trips to Qatar but as usual money talks
@COYBIG: good point.
@COYBIG: Can you please remind everyone on the circumstances surrounding Nick McCarthy not travelling on that occasion. TY.
I hope the URC get the same hiding from the media that the LIV golfers got. Highly unlikely and this is a direct result of the CVC investment – it’s all about the money now – screw the players, screw the supporters, line the pockets of the investment fund.
@Reggie: it’s also remarkable poor timing. Most of the world are in the midst of an energy crisis and he’s talking about flying squad’s to the middle East for training camps??? Wyf, air conditioning stadiums for what 1000 expats to watch boys building tackle bags and drills??
No. Not ok. Qatar is a fundamentally vile country, built on the back of near to slave labour. For all the people who say that sport helps bring values, etc., to these countries, what totalitarian country has actually been reformed because it got the opportunity to host sports events? Qatar has no rugby heritage, only money.
I have followed Rugby all my life and this is a retrograde decision. If it goes ahead I’m out of the URC !
@Con Cussed: Same, this is a disgrace to be even throwing the idea out there.
Hopefully the professional rugby players association will react and refuse to play in Qatar, or any of the other Arab nations with human rights issues. Many a golfer has sold his life to the LIV, let’s not do the same with rugby – this is a family and community sport, let’s not spoil it!
Ah jaysus
@Arthur Pewty: Exactly! Well said.
Murray, you made a typo with that. What he actually said was “i don’t give two shits about any rugby values or growing the game really. These boys with zero market and zero potential market are going to give us a few quid so I’m going to say whatever rubbish they’d like. Obviously certain members of our community might get locked up for being themselves if they actually go there but again we’re desperate for the cash”
“I think rugby and Western values around rugby especially are more pertinent than ever in the Middle East. And they are open to having those conversations around progress. Sport is a big part of that conversation of how they progress, how they’re seen to be progressive, and I hope we can be part of that.”
Absolutely disgusting weasel words.
All organisations, clubs, journalists must call this what it is.
Sportwashing.
URC launch in London-why? There is no English team in the competition
@Jonathan O’Riordan: good point. nearer the square mile where a lot of dogey money swills around? Sheiks also like London.
@Jonathan O’Riordan: Partly it’s to do with the CEO Anayi being a Londoner. But even so, I wouldn’t think that’d be an issue really.
@Jonathan O’Riordan: Probably the easiest place for all involved to travel to, flights from SA to Cardiff probably difficult same as Edinburgh etc same as northern Italy, easier to get to London than others, also easier for media to attend as well.
What the hey is this? I’m outraged at the human cost of how Qatar treated their South Asian work force in the building of the stadiums for FIFA, some of which would be used for this no doubt (there’s not a lot of space there). I’m not watching the next FIFA World Cup because of it now I will have to seriously consider my following of the URC if this materialises. I feel very strongly about this, they should not be rewarded for an amnesty issue.
For once everyone in the42 comments seems to be unanimous.
Terrible decision by the URC.
Since when do Arabs get involved in Rugby? Thought the africans already owned the urc… :)
This is a horrendous move for the league, and only serves to drop it further in my eyes, money talks, but where will the money come from after they’ve driven the sport into the ground?
@Patrick Breen: don’t you mean “ driven into the SAND” Patrick.
@Denis O Sullivan: wahey
Wat a disgrace.
Wtf, have they learned nothing from the deaths and shocking treatment of migrant workers building the stadiums and infrastructure for the World cup?
What the article doesn’t mention is that Qatar airlines have also sponsored EPCR, and wish to host Heineken Cup games in future as well. Can’t see it going down well if a team loses a home game to play in Qatar, esp among season ticket holders, but what odds that the final is hosted in Qatar before it is in Italy (who were supposed to host it it 2015)?
@Kingshu: just to add further thoughts on that, the proposed Club World Cup is planned to be played in just one host country every 4 years, can see Qatar hosting the 2nd edition of that.
@Kingshu: fast forward, I smell a quatari rugby world cup in the pipeline.. All those beautiful world cup stadiums built on modern slavery empty after the football wc…
@Stuart Collins: can certainly see a bid in the future, depending on how the football WC goes. As to the Club World Cup I can see them paying a lot af money to be permanent hosts, like Hong Kong 7s.
@Kingshu: what you mean like HK7s? HK as a venue has been an integral part of growing the 7s game since the beginning in the mid 70s! No comparison at all. Sure they throw a lot of money at it but it’s part of sevens tradition, they didn’t just arrive in after its full développement and try to buy it out!! Have you actually been at the HK7s?
If Leinster can’t bring any player of their choosing, the whole squad should boycott en-masse. Similarly, while Rugby Europe has traditionally had Russia as a contender, societal attitudes there are in need of enlightenment before we should reward them with our product.
what’s all the fuss. Every other professional sport is taking their money, from Formula 1 to soccer, tennis to Horse racing.
If they get free flights and holidays for their families to Quatar then well done I say.
@Tim Brennan: Well no one asked you.
@Tim Brennan: ignorance is bliss I guess
Will not be subscribing further if they do this.
At what price ?
Teams having to omit certain players from playing there, due to their sexual orientation….
This would be bad
Greedy B@st&@ds
Absolutely not acceptable at all, I truly hope the Irish sides refuse to go anywhere near the place.
“World’s best airline” my a**e. Having flown hundreds of times with scores of different airlines, there’s only one airline I’ll speak poorly of. Qatar. Those awards were bought, just like every other thing that country has achieved.