Reigning Super Bowl champion New England and the Kansas City Chiefs managed narrow road triumphs in battles between NFL unbeatens on Sunday to remain perfect through four games this season.
Tom Brady threw for only 150 yards but New England intercepted four passes, two by JC Jackson, and Matthew Slater returned a blocked punt 11 yards for a touchdown in a 16-10 Patriots victory at Buffalo. “To go on the road and beat a team that’s 3-0 is pretty good,” Brady said.
“We can certainly play better than we did. We’ve got to get in the red area (at
or inside the opponent’s 20-yard line).
We missed some opportunities there. We’ll go out and try and do a better job next week.”
Patrick Mahomes drove the Chiefs 79 yards in 13 plays and Darrel Williams made his second 1-yard touchdown run of the fourth quarter with 20 seconds remaining to give Kansas City a 34-30
triumph at Detroit.
Mahomes completed 24-of-42 passes for 315 yards but went without a touchdown pass for only the fourth time in his career while Detroit’s Matthew Stafford completed 21-of-34 passes for 291 yards and three touchdowns in a losing cause.
“They found a way to take away some of the stuff we like to do,” Mahomes said. “They hadn’t lost a game for a reason.”
The Chiefs and Patriots became the first NFL teams to reach 4-0 while the Bills fell to 3-1 and Detroit slid to 2-1-1.
Bills coach Sean McDermott was upset over the brutal helmet-to-helmet hit delivered by New England’s Jonathan Jones on Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen that knocked the signal caller out of the game in the fourth quarter and into the NFL’s concussion protocol.
“There’s no room in football for a play like the hit on Josh Allen,” McDermott said. A penalty against Jones was offset by another on the Bills, but Buffalo defender Micah Hyde said his unit would have gotten a harsher fate had one of them
delivered such a hit to 42-year-old
Brady, winner of a record six Super Bowl crowns.
“One of us did that to 12, we wouldn’t have been in the game anymore,” Hyde said. Buffalo running back Frank Gore, in his 15th NFL season, became the fourth player in league history to rush for 15,000 career yards, cracking the barrier on a 41-yard run. Only record-holder Emmitt Smith (18,355 yards), Walter Payton (16,726) and Barry Sanders (15,269) have carried for more yards and Gore is on track to pass Sanders later this year.
Gore, who ran 17 times for 109 yards in the loss to stand on 15,021 yards, has played for San Francisco, Miami and Indianapolis as well as the Bills.
Arizona receiver Larry Fitzgerald moved past Tony Gonzalez for second on the NFL’s all-time receptions list with his 1,326th career catch in a 27-10 home loss to Seattle. Fitzgerald, 36, trails only Jerry Rice’s all-time record of 1,549 catches.
The Seahawks, who had a 27-yard interception return touchdown from Jadeveon Clowney, improved to 3-1, as did the Chicago Bears, who had three Eddie Pineiro field goals in a 16-6 home win over Minnesota.
 
Rams, Cowboys defeated
Also falling from the unbeaten ranks were the Los Angeles Rams, who lost to visiting Tampa Bay 55-40, and the Dallas Cowboys, who lost 12-10 at New Orleans.
Jameis Winston completed 28-of-41 passes for 385 yards and four touchdowns for the Buccaneers in the victory while the Rams’ Jared Goff hit 45-of-68 throws for 517 yards and two touchdowns with three costly interceptions in the loss.
At New Orleans, Wil Lutz kicked four field goals, the last of them from 26 yards to put the hosts ahead for good, and the Saints won without scoring a touchdown for the first time in 21 years, dropping the Cowboys to 3-1. Lutz also kicked field goals of 19, 40 and 42 yards in the second quarter.
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