If the game looks a little familiar, well it is.
Except this time, Tom Brady isn't throwing any interceptions.
The Patriots are, for the second straight week, in an offensive shootout. But they've made no turnovers so far, and thus are taking a 24-13 lead into the fourth quarter against the Raiders.
The Pats went into the second half with a 17-10 lead, and immediately increased it to 24-10 with a 7-play, 81-yard drive that was capped by an electrifying 33-yard run from Stevan Ridley. The Raiders answered with a 26-yard field goal by Sebastian Janikowski after a drive that started on their own 18 stalled at the 8 . . . thanks in large part to a pass-interference penalty that the referees first called, then overturned. The call would have given Oakland a first-and-goal at the 2.
The subsequent stop wasn't the first big play made by the Pats on Sunday.
Patrick Chung game up with an end-zone interception on a second-and-goal play from the 6, halting an Oakland drive that could have given the Raiders the lead in the second quarter. Instead, the Pats got the ball on their own 20 and Tom Brady engineered a two-minute drive that ended with a 44-yard field goal by Stephan Gostkowski in the final 10 seconds, giving the Pats a seven-point lead.
Prior to that, however, Oakland had marched 88 yards in only six plays in moving ahead, 10-7, on a one-yard run by Michael Bush in the second quarter.
New England Patriots
The Pats answered that TD with a score of their own, a one-yard run by BenJarvus Green-Ellis that capped a six-play, 64-yard drive jumpstarted by a personal-foul penalty against the Raiders, one of seven penalties (for 70 yards) called against Oakland in the first half. The big plays: Brady-to-Wes Welker completions of 24 and 21 yards, the last of which moved the ball to the 1 and set up Green-Ellis' touchdown.
Then came Chung's interception and the Gostkowski field goal.
Richard Seymour entered Sunday's game against the Patriots fueled by two-plus years of resentment for his trade from New England to Oakland . . . and his failure to control his emotions cost his team dearly in the first quarter.
Seymour was nailed for two penalties -- including an inexcusable roughing-the-passer penalty for hurling Brady to the ground on a third-and-nine after play had been stopped for a delay-of-game call against the Pats -- that accounted for 25 of the 80 yards New England covered in a touchdown drive that gave the Patriots a 7-3 lead after one quarter.
Seymour also committed a face-mask penalty on a two-yard run by Green-Ellis, which moved the ball from the Oakland 45 to the Oakland 42. It took Tom Brady just three plays -- runs of 15 yards by Ridley and 2 yards by Green-Ellis, and a 15-yard pass to Welker set up by a beautiful pick from Chad Ochocinco -- to get the Pats in from there, giving them a 7-3 lead.
The Raiders, given a short field when the opening kickoff by Gostkowski went out of bounds, had taken a 3-0 lead on a chip-shot, 28-yard field goal by Janikowski.