I will say off the top that I think this was Mac's best game as a Patriot. He's right that the OL gave him more time. The offensive gameplan also worked really well, scheming players open with motion. Everything about the offense worked better, and Mac was the biggest part of that.
But for the Mac truthers in here, I think it's worth not burying some of the bad plays he made in this game. There's the tipped ball that's been discussed, but I think the worst play was the fumble, because that was all on him.
On 3rd and 3 with 11:45 or so left in the game, Pats are up 16-10 at the Bills 32. They're in long field goal range if he doesn't take a sack. Mac is in the gun again (already not a good sign). He motions Zeke into the backfield and takes the snap. He has good time to throw - about 4 seconds before a Bills player is on him. He pats the ball twice... then tries to run... directly into the Trent Brown's butt. A defender catches him from behind and he fumbles. Onwenu falls on the ball to recover it. The whole play is wiped from the playbooks and our memory by an unnecessary illegal contact downfield on Pop, who was never a part of Mac's reads from what I can tell. It looked to me like he was staring down Bourne who the Bills put a player underneath at the sticks and he never came open.
Anyone with YTTV or DVR or whatever can go back and watch it. It's exactly the kind of disaster play that blew the team up against NO and LV. We're in field goal range in the fourth quarter with the chance to take the lead and Mac holds the ball too long, displays bad pocket awareness, panics, and takes a sack... and makes it even worse by trying to do too much and fumbling. Except our guy fell on the ball, and further it was wiped out by a bail out penalty. All the same behaviors we've been calling out in this thread, but deleted from the stat sheet and our brains.
Mac was getting those types of mistakes punished to the absolute maximum in the recent few games. Bad throws weren't just being batted down or falling incomplete... they were being intercepted, and returned for touchdowns. Not every one of those mistakes is supposed to bite you - most should get forgotten. Today, his few (I counted 2) interceptable balls were dropped by defenders, and his fumble was recovered and then wiped out. If that fumble is recovered by the Bills, and the Pats don't continue that drive for a TD, we're sitting here making Mark Sanchez jokes. That wouldn't have been fair, given the rest of the game he played. But that's how narrowly perception turns for QBs sometimes. He was getting too much blame after the recent losses, and he'll get too much credit after today's win.
All that being said, he did a lot of things better today, and had fewer of those potential mistakes to be converted than in recent weeks. He ran the offense well. If the guy that played today showed up every week, I'll have a lot more fun watching this team.
