Patriots stun Saints as Tom Brady hits KenbrellTompkins for game

FOXBOROUGH Rob Ryan, the Saints' defensive coordinator, couldn't believe it, throwing his long headed mane back in disgust. He should have. You cannot give Tom Brady three chances to win a game and that is just what the Saints did to fall from the unbeaten ranks at Gillette Stadium Sunday.

All the Saints defense needed was one more stop. All the offense needed was one more first down. But all the Patriots needed was Brady.

Bouncing back from one of the worst games of his career in Cincinnati, Brady's 17 yard hookup with rookie Kenbrell Tompkins with five seconds left in the game gave the Pats a 30 27 win and his first ever head to head victory against Drew Brees. Holding on to a one score lead inside the last 3:30, the Saints had stopped Brady on two previous 2:00 drills but couldn't finish him off. It was a hard lesson on the way to 5 1.

For the 5 1 Patriots, it was a typical win, against all odds, with key players hurt and Brady coming out on top. Now it will fall to the Jets, who came into this weekend hoping to tie for the AFC East lead with a win over the Steelers and a Patriots loss. Now, they'll be desperate to avoid a second loss to New England, which would put them, in effect, four games back.

Afterwards, Brady spoke about mental toughness and "seeing what guys are made of" and how this Patriots team is being defined.

"We're 5 1 we're just grinding," he said. "We've had some tough games and none of them have been easy. Hopefully we can use this as a little bit of momentum heading into next week."

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"You need a short memory in this game,"Bill Belichick said. "We all have bad plays in this game. The competitors come back, keep competing and get it the next time.

"We competed right to the end but we've got to do it every week," he said. "As great as last week was, we've got to turn the page. We've got to go down and play the Jets and we know how tough that's going to be. We'll get tested here and we'll have to answer the bell."

Like Sunday, when they should have been out for the count

Stew Milne/USA Today Sports

Tom Brady (l.) celebrates with Patriots running back Stevan Ridley, who Wholesale Jerseys scores two touchdowns in the game.

The Saints had taken a 24 23 lead with just under 3:30 left when Brees, on a third and 20 play, hit Kenny Stills with a 35 yard touchdown pass against great coverage. Had it been against many teams, that probably would have been the end of it. But after leaving himself open to the second guessers, Belichick's team pulled it out for him.

It certainly looked bleak after Brady failed to get a first down when the Patriots got the ball back and after Belichick decided to go for it on fourth and six from the 24. Brady had his other rookie, Aaron Dodson, open on a slant but Dodson couldn't make the catch after getting his hands on it. The Saints took over but couldn't move the ball, taking just 22 seconds off the clock before settling for Garrett Hartley's 39 yard field goal with 2:24 left to make it a four point game.

Down by four with the 2:00 warning and one timeout to work with, Brady went deep on the first play and made a bad read threw a terrible pass intended for Julian Edelman and intercepted by Keenan Lewis at the Saints 30.

Now the Saints, with 2:16 left, couldn't move it again and when Brady got it again at his 30, he was suddenly at his best, using all the spare parts that available to him.

He hit Edelman, the guy he missed on that INT, over the middle for 23 and then Austin Collie, the ex Colt who was waived by the 49ers after training camp for 15. He picked up six to Dodson, the guy who dropped the fourth down pass and then, on fourth and four, Collie came up big again with a nine yard catch to the New Orleans 17, where Brady spiked the ball to stop the clock.

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Rob Carr/Getty Images

Drew Brees (l.) and the Saints suffer their first loss of the season to Chandler Jones and the Patriots.

This is how Brady explained what happened next:

"When the game gets to the end, the margin of error gets smaller. That's when we're at our best. I looked right, came back left. "K" made a move, slipped behind him (veteran CB Jabari Greer) and I just tried to put it where he could make a play. That was pretty sweet."

The touchdown pass was Brady's first of the day and it came after his 52 game touchdown streak was broken by the Bengals a week ago. It also tied him with Fran Tarkenton for fourth place on the all time list with 342. Brees, meanwhile, finished 17 for 36 for 236 yards with two touchdowns. But it was the first time in 11 games going back to last year where he hadn't completed at least 25 passes.

The Patriots could be short handed against the Jets. Cornerback Aqib Talib helped hold Jimmy Graham, who entered the game as the league's leading receiver, without a catch, left the game with a hip injury. Wide receiver Danny Amedola, who missed Wholesale NFL Jerseys the first game against the Jets, was knocked out of the game with a head injury. Linebacker Jerod Mayo left the game in the fourth quarter with a shoulder injury.

Then there's the matter of tight end Rob Gronkowski, who sat out another game with a forearm injury. There are whispers, perhaps unfair, that it's starting to cause some friction in the normally tight Pats locker room because Gronkowski has looked so good in practice and never plays. Owner Bob Kraft said this week that the player knows best and they stand behind his decision.

But all that didn't really matter at the end of the day.

"Winning helps galvanize everything. Cheap Jerseys Losing sucks," Brady said.

Maybe that's why he seldom does it.

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