Patriots Lose Dion Lewis

The New England Patriots – currently riding high at 8-0 – have suffered a blow to their offense with reports that their versatile running back Dion Lewis has torn his ACL and will miss the rest of the season.

Lewis suffered the injury during Sunday’s win over Washington. It did not come through contact with another player, instead Lewis fell to the ground while making a cut. Lewis had become a potent weapon for the Patriots offense both as a receiver and rusher. He had 234 yards on the ground and 388 yards receiving.

That he was injured without being touched is a fitting – if unwelcome – tribute. Lewis has displayed an ability to make defenders miss all season and according to Pro Football Focus, has an “elusive rating” of 165.2. The metric is usually measured on a scale of around 0-100 and the previous highest mark for any player was 106.9.

Lewis had been a bit-part player at the Eagles, and lasted only a week at the Indianapolis Colts last season. The only good news for Lewis is that he had signed a two-year, $5m deal with the Patriots before Sunday’s injury.

Brandon Bolden is expected to assume Lewis’s role for the rest of the season, alongside LaGarrette Blount.

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Denver Run Out of Luck

Andrew Luck threw two touchdown passes and Adam Vinatieri made a tie-breaking 55-yard field goal with 6:13 to play, giving Indianapolis a surprising 27-24 victory over Denver.

The Colts (4-5) ended a three-game losing streak and stayed atop the AFC South by ruining Peyton Manning’s return to Indy again. Denver (7-1) was the only unbeaten team to lose this weekend.

Luck was brilliant, going 21 of 36 for 252 yards. He broke a 17-17 tie with a TD pass early in the fourth quarter, then helped snap a 24-24 tie by setting up Vinatieri for the field goal on the next drive. Indy ran out the final 5:57.

Manning was 21 of 36 for 281 yards with two TDs and two interceptions. He couldn’t break Brett Favre’s record for regular-season wins (186) by a quarterback and fell three yards short of becoming the NFL’s career passing leader.

In Sunday’s other later starts there were wins for the Giants and 49ers.

Blaine Gabbert threw a pair of second-quarter touchdown passes to Garrett Celek and the undermanned 49ers held on to beat the Atlanta Falcons 17-16.

The 49ers (3-6) head into the bye on a winning note after a week of change. Making his first start in more than two years, Gabbert didn’t take a sack behind an offensive line that has faced heavy scrutiny all year.

Celek made TD catches of one and 11 yards to give him three on the year and San Francisco’s stout defense flustered Matt Ryan despite the patchwork use of backups because of a rash of injuries.

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Gabbert threw an interception midway through the fourth quarter, giving Atlanta (6-3) another chance with 7:14 to go. After an incompletion, Ryan hit six straight throws, but eventually missed Julio Jones in the end zone and Atlanta kicked a field goal and fell just short.

Meanwhile, Eli Manning threw for 213 yards and two touchdowns, helping the first-place New York Giants rebound from last week’s road debacle at New Orleans with a 32-18 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Josh Brown booted four field goals for the Giants (5-4), including fourth-quarter kicks of 53 and 44 yards that gave New York some breathing room after the Bucs (3-5) pulled within two points.

Manning threw first-half TD passes of 8 yards to Reuben Randle and four yards to Shane Vereen. The Giants defense, bolstered by the return of Jason Pierre-Paul, did its part by keeping the Jameis Winston-led Tampa Bay offense out of the end zone until the rookie scrambled 10 yards for a TD that made it 20-18 with 9:25 remaining.

Winston’s two-point conversion pass to the rear of the end zone was caught out of bounds. The Giants sealed the victory with Brown’s third and fourth field goals, plus Trevin Wade’s fumble recovery on the game’s final play.

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Patriots Now Five and O

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Coach Chuck Pagano stared straight into the cameras and tried to explain what went wrong on Sunday night’s botched fake punt. It was inexplicable.

On a night, the Colts finally went toe-to-toe with their bitter rivals, a bungled play call gave Tom Brady a short field and a gift chance to put the game away. He did. Brady led the Patriots on a 35-yard touchdown drive to seal a 34-27 victory at Indianapolis.

“The whole idea there was on fourth-and-3 or less, shift our alignment to where you either catch them misaligned, they try to sub some people in, catch them with 12 men on the field and if you get a certain look, you can make a play,” Pagano said. “Alignment-wise, we weren’t lined up correctly and then there was a communication problem on the snap and I take responsibility for that.”

Indianapolis (3-3) never recovered and now their hope of hosting New England in a potential playoff game plan probably is gone, too.

Receiver Griff Whalen, who snapped the ball to safety Colt Anderson, called it a miscommunication. Pagano blamed himself. But all that really mattered was the result.

“It’s obviously not ideal,” Andrew Luck said. “At the same time, a couple of three-and-outs didn’t help the cause.”

Brady took full advantage of the miscues in one of the strangest games of this long, heated rivalry.

He threw for 312 yards, three touchdowns and led the Patriots to a 34-27 victory Sunday night in the highly anticipated ‘Deflategate’ rematch.

But in a series defined by wild games and crazy plays, Indy’s awful fake punt might have been the worst of the worst. With most of Indianapolis’ players shifted up near the right sideline, receiver Griff Whalen inexplicably snapped the ball to safety Colt Anderson, who was immediately tackled for a 1-yard loss.

That gave the Patriots the ball at the Colts 35. Six plays later, Brady broke free from the pass rush and hooked up with LeGarrette Blount for an 11-yard touchdown pass to give the Patriots a 34-21 lead early in the fourth quarter.

New England has won seven straight over its longtime rival and is 5-0 for the first time since its 16-0 season in 2007.

While Brady wasn’t perfect – he threw his first interception of the season – he was still pretty darn good. Brady finished 23 of 37 in the first meeting since January’s AFC title, which ultimately led to allegations of improperly inflated balls, months of investigation and eventually a four-game suspension that was nullified in court.

Had the suspension been upheld, Brady would have made his season debut in front of a hostile Indianapolis crowd.

Instead, Colts fans, who booed heartily when Brady first appeared at Lucas Oil Stadium, roared even louder when Indianapolis’ Andrew Luck returned after missing two games with an injured right shoulder. Luck was 30 of 50 for 312 yards with three touchdowns and most importantly, no turnovers.

New England got away from its strong ground game, running just 25 times for 116 yards, and kept the ball mostly in Brady’s hands.

But the Colts played the more aggressive game.

They scored a touchdown on the opening series by going for it on fourth-and-1. They tried a first-half onside kick. They continued to take shots down the field, and they refused to back down from the defending Super Bowl champs.

So the fake punt fit right in – no matter how bad it turned out.

“We were going to be aggressive,” Pagano said. “We were going to attack this football team.”

It was the game everyone wanted to see in last season’s AFC championship game, a 38-point rout.

Inspired by Luck’s return, the Colts led 21-20 at halftime – something they had not done since Luck’s arrival in 2012.

But in the second half, Brady reverted to form.

He opened the second half by taking the Patriots on an 80-yard drive, capping it with a 25-yard TD pass to a wide-open Rob Gronkowski to make it 27-21.

And after getting the short field off the fake punt, Brady put the game away with a nimble move to evade the pass rush and spot Blount in the end zone for the first TD catch of his pro career.

“It’s a good win, I’m glad we won,” Brady said. “It’s always good to win on the road.”

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