DS Talk » They’re hoping their 24-10 victory over the Vikings

FOXBOROUGH Rock Ya-Sin Jersey , Mass. (AP) — The Patriots have thrived in the final month of the season since Bill Belichick and Tom Brady’s arrival.Tom Brady passed for 311 yards and a touchdown, Bill Belichick earned his 250th victory, including playoffs, as Patriots coach in Sunday’s victory over Minnesota.Article continues below ...Including his 37 regular-season and postseason wins with the Browns, Belichick has 287 wins overall.Brady completed 24 of 32 passes and has 579 touchdown passes, including the playoffs, tying him with Peyton Manning for the most all time. He also has 508 regular-season TD passes, which ties him with Brett Favre on the career list. Manning is first with 539 and Drew Brees is next with 518.James Develin added a career-high two touchdown runs . New England finished with 471 yards. Brady said the diversity of their attack was his biggest takeaway.“Seven guys running, eight guys catching — that makes it hard for them to defend us,” he said. “Hopefully we can keep it going.”The Patriots (9-3) have won eight of nine since starting the season 1-2. Belichick improved to 65-13 in December. Brady is 59-11. Both marks are NFL records for the most wins during that month for a coach and player.The Patriots have clinched their 18th straight winning season. It is the second-longest streak in NFL history. The record is held by the Cowboys at 20 seasons from 1966-85.Minnesota (6-5-1) has lost two of its past three. The defeat prevented Minnesota from gaining ground on the NFC North-leading Chicago Bears, who lost 30-27 in overtime to the New York Giants.The Vikings entered the game allowing the third-fewest rushing yards in the league (93.6 per game). But New England was able to spread them out, rushing for 160 yards.Kirk Cousins kept Minnesota in the game early, before faltering down the stretch. He finished 32 of 44 for 201 yards and touchdown but had two late interceptions.Brady improved to 5-0 against Minnesota http://www.indianapoliscoltsteamonline.com/ben-banogu-jersey , one of five teams (Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Tampa Bay) he has a perfect regular-season record against.With New England leading 10-7 in the third quarter, Stephen Gostkowski missed a 48-yard field-goal attempt wide right at the 6:26 mark. It snapped a streak of 35 straight makes in the regular season of less than 50 yards, going back to October of last season.The Vikings tied the game on the ensuing series with Dan Bailey’s 39-yard field goal.But the Patriots bounced back, needing just four plays for Brady to cap a 75-yard drive with a 24-yard touchdown pass to Josh Gordon that put the Patriots back in front 17-10.Following Minnesota’s punt, the Patriots picked up where they left off. This time they needed only six plays to set up a 2-yard TD run by Develin that made it 24-10.The Vikings survived a challenge by Belichick of a spot on a fourth down rush by Latavius Murray on their next possession. Belichick’s challenge led to a brief verbal exchange between him and receiver Adam Thielen. It included linebacker Kyle Van Noy coming to his coach’s defense.“Everybody’s out there battling,” Patriots safety Devin McCourty said. “Sometimes football comes down to a yard. … But Bill’s fiery. We see it every day.”But facing a fourth-and-11 seven plays later, the Vikings turned it over on downs after Cousins’ pass to Laquon Treadwell came up short.Thielen said it’s a wakeup call for the Vikings.“Obviously we’ve got to get better. I’ve got to get better,” Thielen said. “I didn’t make the plays I needed to.”Minnesota got the ball back quickly after Brady threw his first interception in five games to Eric Kendricks. But a pass into the end zone by Cousins was tipped by J.C. Jackson and intercepted by Duron Harmon .“Every guy on the offense, they’re hungry. You know, just like the defense. We’re all hungry,” Patriots receiver Cordarrelle Patterson said. “We all know our role and we embrace it.”SPOT ONMinnesota coach Mike Zimmer pulled out his red challenge flag at just the right time late in the first half to help get his team on the scoreboard.The Vikings successfully challenged the referee’s spot after an apparent first down completion to Rob Gronkowski. It left the Patriots with a third-and-1 on their 26.Minnesota stopped the ensuing run by James White and New England was forced to punt.Cousins went to work in the two-minute offense Parris Campbell Jersey , opening Minnesota’s drive with completions of 24 and 23 yards to Stefon Diggs and Kyle Rudolph. He added another 10-yard completion to Diggs four plays later to set up a 5-yard touchdown pass to Thielen that trimmed the Patriots’ lead to 10-7 at the half.RUN BRADY RUNBrady reached another milestone: 1,000 yards rushing in his career.Brady hit the mark on a 5-yard scramble in the first quarter. He slid to a stop, popped to his knee and signaled for a first down.He finished with two rushes for 5 yards. He avoided losing a yard when he kneeled down on the final play of the game .“I’m not trying to go backward,” he said. “I don’t want us to go backwards anymore.”Never considered much of a mobile quarterback, it took Brady 19 years and 265 games to reach the 1,000-yard milestone — the most by a player since the merger. At 41, he is also the oldest player to reach 1,000 career rushing yards since 1970.He has averaged 1.7 yards per carry and 3.8 yards per game, with his most “prolific” season in 2002 when he ran for a total of 110 yards.INJURIESVikings: CB Trae Waynes was evaluated for a concussion in the second quarter and ruled out for the rest of the game.Patriots: S Patrick Chung was helped off the field in the fourth quarter.UP NEXTVikings: At Seattle for “Monday Night Football” matchup on Dec. 10.Patriots: At Miami next Sunday. PITTSBURGH (AP) — No last-second meltdown. No double-lateral magic by the opponents. No, the New England Patriots couldn’t point to anything fluky in a 17-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday.Not after a game in which they were penalized 14 times for 106 yardsOne in which they punted on five straight possessions and managed all of three points in three trips to the red zone.One in which the Steelers finally figured out a way to slow down Rob Gronkowski and keep Tom Brady from carving them up, something he’d done with remarkable ease throughout the years.The Patriots (9-5) are still in comfortable position to win their 10th straight AFC East title. Yet rarely during their dynasty have they looked so vulnerable so late in the season. New England dropped its second straight and fell to 3-5 away from Gillette Stadium, meaning it will almost certainly have to go on the road at least once and possibly twice to reach another Super Bowl.Not that one seemed particularly close at hand during another anemic showing in their road white uniforms. The Patriots have lost five games in the regular season for the first time since 2009, which also happened to be the last time they finished under .500 on the road (2-6). A week ago it was Miami’s dramatic 69-yard series of laterals on the final snap. This time around Will Harris Jersey , the issues were far more basic.“We obviously haven’t played very well on the road,” Brady said. “Obviously what we are doing isn’t good enough. It’s just a cumulative thing. We’re out here as a team trying to compete. When you’re on the road you have to play well. Some things are a little bit more challenging on the road. We have to embrace those things. And we just haven’t done a great job on that.”Brady finished 25 of 36 for 279 yards to become the fourth player in NFL history to top 70,000 career yards passing, but had trouble getting the ball downfield after a busted coverage left Chris Hogan open for a 63-yard score on New England’s third offensive snap. Gronkowski, who came in averaging 111 yards receiving in six games against Pittsburgh, caught two passes for 21 yards.The Patriots also had trouble finishing drives. Each of their last three possessions ended up in the red zone, but the only points they managed were a 33-yard Stephen Gostkowski field goal in the third quarter that trimmed Pittsburgh’s lead to 14-10.“Just not converting, I think that’s all it is,” running back James White said. “Not executing the way we want to. We have to be better.”All the penalties didn’t help. The missteps came in a wide variety of ways, from pass interference to false starts to offensive and defensive holding, mistakes that made momentum difficult to come by. The most damaging came in the final moments.New England had second-and-5 at the Pittsburgh 11 with 37 seconds to go needing a touchdown. Right guard Shaq Mason was flagged for holding, pushing the ball back to the 21. Three Brady incompletions — the last a pass intended for Julian Edelman that was broken up bysafety Morgan Burnett — and it was over.“Obviously, there is holding on every play in the NFL http://www.detroitlionsteamonline.com/austin-bryant-jersey ,” Brady said. “That’s what we do, we hold. It’s just whether you get called or not. If they are calling it, then you just have to do a little bit less of it.”Edelman, who wore cleats honoring the 11 people killed in a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue in October, pointed the finger at himself for some of New England’s issues.“We definitely have to be a little more poised,” Edelman said. “That starts with me. I had two penalties. It put us in a hole. We had a lot of penalties and you can’t have that against a good team. Plain and simple. That’s a good football team.”Just one that had not played like it lately. The Steelers came in having lost three straight and winless against New England since 2011. Yet they never trailed and had little trouble moving the ball on the ground with rookie running back Jaylen Samuels, who ran for a season-high 142 yards in his second NFL start.The Patriots have allowed at least 104 yards in each of their five losses.“They did a good job of running the ball,” safety Duron Harmon said. “That’s something obviously the last few weeks we haven’t been as well against … but I know (the defensive linemen) are working their tails off to try and stop it and they’ll continue to work their tails off until we do stop them. I’m confident in the group we have.”It’s a swagger that comes from having come through so many times, swagger that may be lacking a bit this time around.“Every year is different, every team is different,” Gronkowski said. “Every year we just have to stick together. We have to keep on grinding. We have to keep on working and we’ve got to keep moving forward.”