Morning Sports Update
“Let’s not give more credit than we need to give credit to Bill Belichick in this one.”
The Patriots wore down the Bills in a snowy, windy 14-10 win on Monday night. New England ran the ball 46 times, electing to attempt a pass on just three occasions.
With the win, the Patriots head into a bye week as the top team in the AFC after starting the season 2-4.
Elsewhere, the Celtics face the Lakers tonight in Los Angeles at 10 p.m.
Sean McDermott’s quote on Bill Belichick: After his team lost to the Patriots on Monday, Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott was asked about the “psychological component of coaching against Bill Belichick, especially when he’s doing something like that, just running the ball constantly.”
“Let’s not give more credit than we need to give credit to Bill Belichick in this one,” McDermott replied. “Whether it’s Bill or anybody else, they beat us. You sit here and you tell me when we start with the average starting field position at the 40-yard line and he starts [at] the 23-yard line—I’m rounding up in both cases—and we were 1-4 in the red zone, and they were 0-1 in the red zone. You give me that ahead [of the game], I’m sorry, I like my chances.
“With all due respect, it’s not a Bill Belichick-type thing,” McDermott continued. “It’s, ‘What are you doing with the opportunities you’ve got?’”
McDermott added that Buffalo’s mistakes amounted to “sloppy football,” which he blamed for the loss more than Belichick’s influence on the game.
Bills players also expressed a level of frustration after the game. Buffalo safeties Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde were asked if they found it “embarrassing” to have lost to a team that ran the ball more than 40 times.
“What kind of question is that?” Poyer replied.
“What are we doing bro?” Hyde asked.
“We made stops when we had to, they had one big run,” said Poyer. “I mean they [have] good backs. They kept coming back to a couple runs. I mean I don’t know how you want us to answer that question.”
“We’ll remember that,” Hyde said of the question.
As he was leaving the press conference, Hyde addressed Jerry Sullivan, the Buffalo reporter who had asked them the original question.
“This is all about respect,” Hyde said to Sullivan. “I come here every single week and I answer your questions truthfully, honestly. I appreciate you guys. Don’t do that.”
“In my day, players answered that kind of question,” Sullivan responded.
He followed up with a tweet further criticizing Hyde and the current restrictions on media access.
The Bills, now 7-5, will travel to face the Buccaneers in Week 14.
Trivia: Damien Harris’s 64-yard touchdown run was the longest by a Patriots running back in the regular season since 1997. What running back had a 70-yard touchdown run that year?
(Answer at the bottom.)
Hint: He was drafted out of the University of Pittsburgh.
More from Boston.com:
Julian Edelman’s take on the Patriots’ game plan:
Former NFL executive Gil Brandt had a timely reminder during the Monday night game: The specific game Brandt referenced was New England’s 59-0 blowout of Tennessee in a snowstorm.
On this day: In 1937, the Red Sox acquired a “string-bean 19-year-old outfielder from San Diego” named Ted Williams.
Daily highlight: With the game against Arsenal tied at 1-1 in stoppage time, Everton winger Demarai Gray cut inside and struck a perfectly hit shot off the post and in for the winning goal on Monday.
Trivia answer: Curtis Martin
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