The best thing that happened to the Jacksonville Jaguars at Gillette Stadium was that they won the coin toss.
Then they had their first two drives stall and had to settle for field goals and a 6-0 early lead against the New England Patriots. After that it wasn’t very pretty as the Patriots pasted the Jaguars, 47-12 Thursday night in Foxboro.
Then it was all Patriots. Rookie running back Stevan Ridley, a third round pick out of LSU, had 3 TD’s scoring on a pair of one yard runs and corralling a 16 yard pass from fellow rookie QB Ryan Mallett.
Second string quarterback Brian Hoyer started in place of NFL MVP Tom Brady and showed that that they are in good hands as he played a solid steady first half. He took the team on three scoring drives, which included him tossing an 11-yard TD pass to Taylor Price in the 2nd quarter.
Kicker Stephen Gostkowski added a pair of field goals from 46 and 53 yards as he recovers from a torn quad muscle last season. At the half it was still close as the Patriots lead 19-9.
Mallett, the draft pick from Arkansas, took over in the third quarter and he was on autopilot. He lead the Patriots on four scoring drives as Ridley added his second and third TD’s of the game and rookie free agent RB Richard Medlin had a pair of 2 yard runs for scores.
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Offensively the Patriots, minus a lot of stars looked impressive, as they scored a team record 47 points in a preseason game eclipsing the old mark of 45 set in 1977 against Washington.
They were 11 for 19 on 3rd down and 4 for 4 on 4th down. Hoyer and Mallett combined were 27 for 40 for 335 yards, 2 TD’s and 0 INT’s. There were no sacks of either Patriots signal caller.
The only real offensive negative was fumbles; they had three, losing one by Aaron Hernandez on their first offensive play.
Ridley (16) and Medlin (14) had the most carries as they had 64 and 54 yards respectively and each had two rushing TD’s.
Receiving wise the big guns were Hernandez with 6 catches for 68 yards, Price 5 catches for 105 yards and a TD and Ridley had 7 grabs for an additional 47 yards and a TD.
Defensively the team had some nice stops holding Jacksonville to four field goals 3 by Josh Scobee of 41, 31 and 29 yards and a 40 yarder by Sam Swank.
They held the Jags to only 3 of 13 on 3rd downs and allowed only 193 total yards while getting one INT and 4 sacks.
Buddy Farnham had the INT, while Darius Butler, Dane Fletcher and Brandon Meriweather led the squad with 5 tackles each. Darryl Richard had two sacks, and Jermaine Cunningham and Landon Cohen each had one.
Overall it was a good effort for a short camp and a game that saw the teams big stars such as Brady, Chad Ochocinco, Vince Wilfork, Albert Haynesworth, Jerod Mayo, Wes Welker and many others sit out.
NEXT WEEK
The Patriots visit the Tampa Buccaneers on Thursday August 18th at Raymond James Stadium at 7:30 p.m. You can catch all the action on the Patriots Preseason Television Network and along the Patriots Radio Network.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
