Bill Belichick never seems to run out of chess pieces to move around as the New England Patriots routed Houston 27-0 behind the throwing and running of rookie quarterback Jacoby Brissett on Thursday.
Brissett, who was making his first NFL start, was standing in for injured Jimmy Garoppolo who had taken over temporary control of the quarterback job with superstar Tom Brady serving a four-game suspension for his role in “Deflate-gate.”
The Patriots have proven before that they can win without Brady, but not many expected them to be undefeated during the first three games of the Brady-less era, especially after backup Garoppolo went down.
They are trying to repeat the success of the 2010 Pittsburgh Steelers who had the same early season record when Ben Roethlisberger was suspended for the first four games. Pittsburgh ended up reaching the Super Bowl.
Brissett, who was a third round draft pick, silenced the sceptics with a well-managed game mapped out by New England’s offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.
He got some help from a sloppy Texans defense at times, but the 22-year old’s touchdown run Thursday at Gillette Stadium was the second-longest by a Patriots quarterback since 1976.
The Texans fumbled away two kickoffs, leading to two New England touchdowns, and were also guilty of an interception.
LeGarrette Blount scored from a yard out and then broke a 41-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter. Stephen Gostkowski kicked two short field goals for New England.
Brissett completed 11-of-19 passes for 103 yards passing and ran for a total of 48 yards on eight carries. His 27-yard bootleg run for a touchdown was a thing of beauty and made it 10-0.
Blount said much of the credit for the win also has to go to Belichick.
“Hands down, I feel (Belichick) is the best coach to ever coach this game,” Blount said. “We are a family. Everybody has everybody’s back.”
Patriots star tight end Rob Gronkowski, making his 2106 debut after missing two games with a hamstring injury, played sparingly and didn’t have a catch.
The Texans’ Charles James and rookie Tyler Ervin fumbled the kickoffs, while quarterback Brock Osweiler threw the interception.
Osweiler was 24-of-41 for 196 yards. Lamar Miller ran for 80 yards on 21 carries in the loss.