We saw some surprising things on Sunday in the Broncos and Patriots matchup. The Broncos busted out insanely ugly (but somehow, I liked them) brown and yellow jerseys. Kyle Orton threw his first interception of the season. It came on a hail mary at the end of the first half. He was also gloveless for the first time this season. Oh yeah, the Broncos won to go 5-0 and send the Patriots to 3-2.
Hilariously, Patriots cornerback Leigh Bodden said, “They kept running the same plays, and our offense is similar to it.” That’s right — the Patriots got beat at their own game with Kyle Orton doing the bulk of the damage. Kyle Orton finished 35 for 48 with 330 yards and two touchdowns. The Broncos did all of the scoring in the second half to send the game to overtime tied at 17-17. The Boston Herald said Tom Brady’s second half was the #1 problem of the game:
While Tom Brady [stats] finished 19-of-33 for 215 yards and two touchdowns, he was only 5-of-14 for 63 yards after halftime and wasn’t able to generate a scoring drive. Brady misfired a pass to a wide-open Wes Welker with about four minutes left that probably would have gone for a long touchdown.
Other than that, Eddie Royal had his first good game of the season with 10 receptions. Jerod Mayo returned with limited reps for the Patriots and caused Knowshon Moreno to fumble on his first play in the game. Moreno had a fairly good game as a feature back gaining over 4 yards per carry. And Jabar Gaffney made the statement of the day by twisting his socks so the stripes created a brown and gold candy cane spiral (below). Can the NFL fine him for not wearing the stripes in their intended vertical pattern?
