Pats wrap

Nice win for the Patriots on Sunday. So how did they do on the points I stressed?

* Turnover battle: A 1-0 win. I'll take that every week. Cassel did a pretty good job making smart decisions. He took a couple of sacks that looked a little iffy but he took care of the football, which is now job one for him the rest of the way.

* Running game: 33 carries for a tough 104 yards, but because so many came in the crucial second half it felt like more. Lamont Jordan really brought the hammer when he came in: 11 carries for 62 yards, a 5.6 average. I don't know if they plan to continue using him as a late game closer but he really looked explosive and strong.

* Third down defense: once again, they allowed a 50% conversion rate. Favre made a couple of great, vintage Brett Favre plays on third and long. It happens, and overall I was happy with the effort on third down aside from a few plays with missed tackles.

All in all, this was a really great win. We beat a solid football team on the road and our quarterback who hadn't started since 1999 at Chatsworth High did what we asked him to do. Matt Cassel's final line: 16-23, 165dyards, 69.6% completion rate. There will be weeks when we need him to throw downfielf more often, but I think that efforts like this will get the job done a lot this year. Nice work.