Here we are at week 12, a game which was likely circled on everyone's calendar at the beginning of the season.  Round whatever of Manning/Brady.  Now it's here and things are much changed.  Barring some really strange occurrence, Peyton will be relegated to helping his team from the sideline.  While usually, that's all you would need to know to pencil in a Patriots' victory, things have changed a lot for the high powered Patriots' offense the past few weeks.

It's Monday night and the Patriots have the Rex Ryan coached Buffalo Bills on tap.  According to Vegas, the Patriots are only favored by 7.5.  A Monday night game, at the end of November, against the Bills, my money is on the Patriots.  Yes, the offense will look different without Julian Edelman and Dion Lewis, and the defense is still without out Jamie Collins, but I'm still feeling the Patriots will put the hurt on Bills. 

Seeing that I completely flaked on bringing my laptop and notes to work with me today, my post will be super short.

In order to stay undefeated and not fall to the Giants again, the Patriots need to:

• Have the game in hand so some fluke play at the end of the game doesn't change the outcome.
• Score 7 when they get in close.
• Play a full 60.
• Avoid forcing any passes.
• Use some deception. With a lot of 3 tight end sets, there should be some confusion for the Giants defense.
• Get to Eli without giving up a cheap 15 yard penalty.
• Continue to dominate on special teams.
• Avoid 3 and outs.

During the Patriots game against the Redskins I made a tweet about how they better score a touchdown since they were in close.  In my head, I had it that the Patriots weren't executing as well once they got inside the ten.  This week I decided to look a little closer at this year's possessions inside the ten.  You may be surprised at what you see.

This Sunday the Patriots defense gave up an 83 yard garbage time touchdown drive to the Washington Redskins.  While it didn't put the game in jeopardy it still made Matt Patricia shake his head in disgust.  After giving up yards in chunks, it briefly looked like the Patriots would keep them out of the endzone when they sacked Kirk Cousins for a loss of 9.  Unfortunately, there was a flag on the play giving the Redskins a new set of downs right on the doorstep.  Two plays later, they were in for the score.