Dec. 20, 1964 - The Boston Patriots, who had all the answers from Monday through Saturday, are currently to figure out what happened to them today.
The bare facts are that they had their chin straps knocked off by the Buffalo Bills, 24-14, in the winner-take-all battle for the AFL’s Eastern Division championship in snowy, crowded Fenway Park.
But the Patriots would like some in-depth answers to several questions that still have their brains vibrating as well as those of the Boston crowd of 38,021 that watched the game.
Like: What happened to our fabled blitz? And how did the Bills run against us? And how come Jack Kemp, who didn’t play a down in the Bills’ previous game, started against us? And how did Buffalo defend the double-wing that won us the first Bills-Boston game?
Bills’ coach Lou Saban interrupted his state of happiness long enough to answer some of the questions.
“We neutralized their best blitzer, linebacker Jack Rudolph, by running to our offensive left,” explained Saban. “That meant that Rudolph had to play head-on with our tight end, Ernie Warlick, and that Tommy Addison [Boston’s other outside linebacker] had to do a lot of the blitzing. And our pass protection was fantastic. We picked up everything they threw at us.”
What about running on the Pats? “Actually, we felt all along that we could run on them if we went ahead and played the type of all-around football we are capable of playing.”
Saban said he made his decision to start Kemp on the plane ride to Boston Saturday afternoon.
“I thought Jack was entitled to take us in,” said Saban. “He has the experience, and he’s the top thrower. He did one heck of a job.”
And as far as defending against the Pats’ double-wing formation, Saban said: “We used simple double-double coverage, and we gave [Babe] Parilli [the Boston quarterback] a good rush. He spent a lot of time on his back.”
With the game pretty obviously controlled by the Bills midway in the second quarter, Saban decided not to use some of the “new offensive wrinkles” he installed last week. Instead, they’ll be kept for San Diego when the Chargers invade War Memorial Stadium Saturday afternoon for the over-all AFL title.
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