The coach and the quarterback.

There were a lot of factors in Sunday’s New England Patriots dramating 29-25 win over the Buffalo Bills, but when push comes to shove, the attention always goes back to them.

On any team, really, but clearly the New England Patriots. The quarterback, Mac Jones, finally, finally drove his team down the field for a comeback win. The coach picked up a historic 300th career win. He removed some of the heat, heat that was smoldering around him all week, with intenstity turned up Sunday morning with an NFL Network report that he had agreed to a “lucratve” multi year extension with the Kraft ownership before the season.

Oh, my, had this one gone the other way, Foxborough woud have been burning. But it wasn’t. There was a ton of chatter in the locker room and hallways around it. Players were talking with a different tone, they joked with each other while one spoke at the podium and another waited.

A spring in everybody’s step. As center David Andrews, who narrowly missed getting called for being down field illegally on the first play of the game-winning drive, said “It feels good to go home, having a beer sitting outside.”

The Patriots were able to win Sunday because they controlled the line of scrimmage, their offensive line perhaps bolstered by putting Michael Owneu at right tackle, the return of Cole Strange, etc. helping out their quarterback. Mac Jones even said as much.

“The offensive line gave me the time I needed today,” Jones said. “They made everything work.”

Jones has to be relieved. In his two-plus seasons, he’s had one drive at the end of the game to deliver a win, that being vs. an awful Houston team two years ago. He knows the failures of his other late drives, and admitted as much. “I’ve looked at all of them,” he said, “a lot.

“I told the guys in the huddle ‘Just take a deep breath, let’s do it.'”

And, of course his teammates gave him kudos after they did just that.

“The offense had the ball in their hands at the end,” Patriots corner Jonathan Jones said. “People say they can’t score in (the) two-minute, but they proved everybody wrong.”

“I don’t think a lot of the talk and stfuff that happens with him honestly is fair,” tight end Mike Gesicki said about a half hour after making the game winning catch in the back of the end zone. “He’s done an unbelievable job blocking all that out and he’s done an unbelievable job leading us throughout all that adversity. …He stood in there and delivered play after play after play, and ultimately we won the game. … ultimately on a great ball by him.”

Jones said he wants to continue to make winning plays “and make people believe. … I always believe in myself. You go as the quarterback goes.”

As for Belichick, pretty good timing. There was the site of Patriots Hall of Famer and current Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel in the owners box with Robert Kraft. The NFL Network, not that this is always the case, is the conduit of the league, the league is the owners, and the owner here is Kraft. Connect the dots maybe, and maybe this was a message to maybe the coach to produce, or to the rest of the league that if you want him, he’s under contract and we’re not firing him just so you can grab him for nothing, or that forget the rumors , he’s here to stay. Doubt it’s none of the above.

“I never talk about my contract,” Belichick said when asked about the report, then joked about wanting the media to give him a few softballs.

Yes, it’s all smiles and laughs after a Patriots win, especially when it’s the first one at home in 10 months, and, as the coach said, “the most consistent offensive performance of the year.”

Jones likes to call wins like this “a crumb” and if you get enough, “you get a whole loaf of bread.”

The oven may have been just turned down a few degrees.

Tom King may be reached at @Telegraph_TomK on twitter, or tking@nashuatelegraph.com

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