Patriots remain perfect — but just barely
Carolina still unbeaten, too; Cousins carries Washington; Big Ben leads Pitt in rout
Stephen Gostkowski’s 54-yard field goal with one second remaining Sunday kept the New England Patriots unbeaten with a 27-26 victory over the New York Giants.
After Josh Brown made his fourth field goal of the game with 1:47 remaining, Tom Brady drove the Patriots 44 yards, converting a fourth-and-10 on the series. Gostkowski, the NFL’s leading scorer the last three seasons, sent his winning kick soaring through the uprights.
“You’re one kick away from being Public Enemy No. 1,” Gostkowski said. “You’re always one kick away from trending on Twitter as the No. 1 loser in America. But it’s fun being on a good team. It’s kind of like being on a baseball team where everybody’s got a hit, and you can’t wait to get up there and get a hit, too.”
The Giants have given the 9-0 Patriots fits under Tom Coughlin and nearly pulled off another victory. But you don’t beat New England with field goals, and a five-yard pass to Odell Beckham Jr. on New York’s final drive was originally called a touchdown, then reversed by a video review.
Both Beckham and New England’s Rob Gronkowski had the longest TD catches of their careers: Beckham for 87 yards and Gronkowski for 76. PANTHERS 27, TITANS 10: Cam Newton completed his first 11 passes, the longest streak of his career, and Carolina remained unbeaten, also at 9-0. The Panthers extended their league-best winning streak to 13 games over two seasons as Newton ran for a touchdown and passed for another score. The Titans suffered their 10th straight home loss in the first home game under interim coach Mike Mularkey. Rookie quarterback Marcus Mariota and the Titans were held scoreless in the second half. REDSKINS 47, SAINTS 14: Kirk Cousins threw for a career-high four touchdowns — each one longer than any scoring pass he’d completed all season — to lead Washington. Cousins went 20 for 25 for 324 yards, zero interceptions and a perfect passer rating of 158.3, connecting for TDs of 78 yards to Matt Jones, 16 and eight yards to Jordan Reed, and 11 yards to Jamison Crowder. Cousins didn’t have a touchdown toss of more than seven yards until he got to go up against the Saints’ porous and poor-tackling defence. The 33-point margin of victory for the Redskins (4-5) was the team’s largest since beating San Francisco by 35, 52-17, in October 2005. STEELERS 30, BROWNS 9: Ben Roethlisberger returned from a sprained left foot much earlier than expected and threw for 379 yards, including three touchdowns for Pittsburgh. Roethlisberger started out on the bench but entered in the first quarter after Landry Jones went down with a left ankle injury. Roethlisberger completed 22 of 33 passes and was sacked once as Pittsburgh won its second straight. Antonio Brown caught 10 passes for 139 yards and two scores. Johnny Manziel passed for a career-high 372 yards with a touchdown and an intercep- tion but was also sacked six times. The Browns ran for just 15 yards and were penalized 11 times for 159 yards. JAGUARS 22, RAVENS 20: Jason Myers kicked a 53-yard field goal after Jacksonville got one final play on a face mask penalty with no time left, and the Jaguars ended their 13-game road losing streak. Down 20-19 with no timeouts, the Jaguars got the ball at their 20 with 1:06 left. After moving to the Baltimore 49, Blake Bortles took the snap an instant before the clock expired and was quickly sacked by Elvis Dumervil. But Dumervil grabbed the quarterback’s face mask, giving the Jaguars one final play even though the clock read 0:00. VIKINGS 30, RAIDERS14: Adrian Peterson ran for 203 yards and a touchdown in his record-tying sixth career 200-yard game, Cordarrelle Patterson returned a kick 93 yards for a score and Minnesota took over sole possession of first place in the NFC North by winning in Oakland. Teddy Bridgewater threw a touchdown pass, and the Vikings held the Raiders’ potent offence in check for their fifth straight win. Minnesota moved a game ahead of Green Bay in the division heading into next week’s showdown at home with the Packers. Derek Carr threw two touchdown passes for the Raiders, but also was intercepted twice. DOLPHINS 20, EAGLES 19: Chris McCain knocked Rams QB Sam Bradford out and Reshad Jones spoiled Eagle Mark Sanchez’s comeback bid. Ryan Tannehill threw a goahead four-yard touchdown pass to Jarvis Landry and the defence held on for Miami. Bradford injured his left shoulder and sustained a concussion on a hard hit by McCain in the third quarter and didn’t return, though X-rays were negative. Sanchez drove the Eagles to the Dolphins eight late in the fourth quarter, but Jones intercepted his pass in the end zone. Miami’s defence held again in the final minute. BUCCANEERS 10, COWBOYS 6: Jameis Winston scored on a oneyard quarterback keeper with 54 seconds remaining, extending Dallas’ longest losing streak since 1989 to seven games. The No. 1 draft pick shrugged off two interceptions — the first he’d thrown in a month — and benefited from a defensive holding call that wiped out his goal-line fumble on the play before the rookie faked a hand-off to Doug Martin and circled around right end all alone. BEARS 37, RAMS 13: Zach Miller caught two TD passes, including an 87-yard score that was Chicago’s longest play since 2010, and rookie Jeremy Langford also had two TDs. The Bears improved to 3-1 on the road after their top offensive showing. Langford was untouched on an 83yard TD on a screen and also had a six-yard scoring run. The running back, filling in for the injured Matt Forte, had seven catches for 109 yards and 73 yards on 20 carries.