Week 10 brought about a few big matchups for the AFC East, as both the Bills and Dolphins faced playoff contending teams. Unfortunately, they both lost. The only team in the East to win their matchup last week was surprisingly the New York Jets, who stunned the Pittsburgh Steelers 20-13. The Patriots had the bye, but will return to action this week, while the Jets take the week off.
Before we get to the Patriots game Sunday night, let’s take a look back at the important Dolphins vs Bills game that took place Thursday night.
The Bills entered this game hoping to prove themselves worthy of a playoff spot and keep pace in the tough AFC East. The Dolphins looked to do the same, and there could only be one victor here.
Behind a dominating performance by the defense the Dolphins took this one, 22-9 in front of their home crowd, to improve to 6-4 on the year, while the Bills fell to 5-5. This was a close game, and a battle of the place kickers, for awhile with both offenses having trouble finding the endzone; then the Dolphins put it together in the second half.
Ryan Tannehill got off to a shaky start, but was able to recover nicely to finish the game with 240 yards and two touchdown passes. Kyle Orton and the Bills offense, on the other hand, failed to score a touchdown in this game and haven’t scored a touchdown since the first quarter of Week 10 against the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Miami defense has come up big in a few games this year, and this was one of them. They were able to hold off the Bills and take this important division matchup to keep their playoff hopes alive facing a tough schedule moving forward.
New England Patriots at Indianapolis Colts, Sunday, 8:30pm EST
Two of the top teams with two of the best quarterbacks in the league will face-off this Sunday night in Indy. The 7-2 Patriots will travel to Indianapolis to take on Andrew Luck and the 6-3 Colts. Both teams are coming off the bye, but both won their Week 9 matchups in dominating fashion as the Pats beat the Denver Broncos 43-21 and the Colts beat the New York Giants 40-24.
The Colts are ranked number one in the passing game with 3,037 yards on the year and an average of 7.8 yards per pass attempt. Luck has quite a few offensive weapons, which is why the Colts pass game is the best in the league right now. When it comes to this matchup, the Pats defense has given up an average of 7.1 yards per pass attempt, which will highly favor the Colts.
Now, the Patriots have a pretty good offense as well with the future Hall of Famer Tom Brady paving the way. While he doesn’t have as many offensive targets as he once had, he is able to execute on the field and can always rely on Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski, who is having a great season.
Brady has a quarterback rating of 103.5 behind 2,392 yards and 22 touchdowns thus far this season. Remember all that talk about Brady being washed up, and his play being questioned? Seems like a long time ago, as he has since silenced the critics with his impressive play, keeping the Patriots in first place of the AFC East.
This will be an entertaining matchup between two of the best offenses in the league. Tom Brady vs. Andrew Luck, definitely a matchup deserving of primetime.
Final Prediction
Patriots 31 Colts 37