FOXBORO -- Julian Edelman told him to be ready when the play comes. And in a season for him that's been defined by pouncing on whatever opportunities he can grasp, Philip Dorsett took full advantage.
Facing third-and-6 from the Chargers' 15 early in the second quarter, the speedster lined up in the slot aside Edelman, who motioned in from outside the numbers to create a stack formation at the snap. Edelman's short out-cut created some confusion with defensive backs Casey Hayward and Desmond King as Dorsett knifed through the two, gliding his way to the back pylon for an all-too-easy-looking 15-yard score, the first of his postseason career.
"Me and Jules, that was a combination route," Dorsett said. "I don't know how they played it, but I guess that spot just kinda popped open. We were working on that play all week. Jules always told me, 'Stay ready, stay ready, it'll be coming to you', just have to stay ready and try to make a play."
Not a bad way for the former first-round pick to finally get the first postseason touchdown catch of his career. Asked if the play felt as easy as it looked, Dorsett didn't want to go there.
PATRIOTS 41, CHARGERS 28
"A touchdown's a touchdown," he said. "People don't understand how hard it is to score in the NFL, and then how hard it is to score in the postseason. Obviously it was my first postseason touchdown, but I mean, it felt great."
Coming off a Wild Card round game in which they impressively stifled Lamar Jackson and his read-option prowess with an unorthodox scheme that deployed seven defensive backs for all but one snap, the Chargers came into Gillette Stadium with a bundling of defensive swagger. Between the bevy of versatile back-seven defenders led by Hayward, King and rookie Derwin James, along with arguably the league's best bookend pass-rush duo in Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram, consensus said this was going to be a tough nut to crack.
But not only did the Patriots split it open, they spilled its remnants across the turf like a crop-duster. And you can point to Dorsett's score, part of a string of 31 unanswered points after Philip Rivers' 43-yard TD strike to Keenan Allen tied it at 7-7, as the fracturing that led to the avalanche.
Dorsett says the Patriots were "on the details" today, and that resulted in statistically his best two-game stretch since the first two weeks of the season. Dorsett caught four passes on five targets for 41 yards and a touchdown, coming on the heels of a five-catch, 34-yard, one-score effort in the regular-season finale rout of the Jets.
PATRIOTS 41, CHARGERS 28
Dorsett has come back into focus as the team searched for new answers in the light of the departure of Josh Gordon. It couldn't have come at a better time.
"Tom [Brady] did a great job working with what the defense gave to him," Dorsett said. "That's what it is when you play against a heavy zone team like that, and a really good team that knows how to play it as well as they play it. You've just gotta take what the defense gives you. You can't force things."
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