FOXBOROUGH — Big week for Trey Flowers.
On Friday, his family welcomed its second child, a daughter. And on Sunday, he delivered one of the game-changing defensive plays of the afternoon, coming through with a big third-down sack to help New England come away with a 24-10 win over the Vikings.
On the first play of the fourth quarter, the Vikings were sitting on a third-and-5 at their own 30-yard line. Trailing 17-10, Minnesota was looking to launch a game-tying drive behind the likes of quarterback Kirk Cousins.
But Flowers had other ideas. He was initially lined up over the left end, but he quickly took a couple of steps to his right, and brought pressure up the middle, sacking Cousins for a 10-yard loss and forcing Minnesota to punt the ball away.
???@iii_flowers | #MINvsNE | #GoPats pic.twitter.com/g35pPELLh2
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) December 2, 2018
The Patriots cashed in six plays later, as James Develin burst in from the 2-yard line to make it a two-score game and fundamentally end things.
"It's always special bringing a child into this world. That's actually my second one," Flowers said after the game. "Just being able to go see my child born then come back and play the game I love and contribute is a blessing."
Flowers now has 4.5 sacks on the season, and is a major part of a defense that has now allowed just two touchdowns in the last two games. Against the Vikings, New England had a pair of sacks (Adam Butler had the other) and two interceptions (one from Duron Harmon and another from Jonathan Jones) on the way to holding Minnesota to just 10 points on the night.
“It’s just a lot of guys buying in and understanding that it’s not just one position here or just one thing you’re doing on this play," Flowers said of the group. “If they give us a different look, we can change it up. A lot of guys are just on top of the game plan and the playbook. When you have a lot of guys that are smart enough to learn different things, you can do things like that and be effective.
“We have to keep on working,” Flowers added. “We’re not where we want to be, but we’ll just always continue to climb, continue to grind, and get better each and every week. It’s not getting any easier, so we just have to stay on top of it and continue to climb. I think a lot of guys are coming together and just want to get better. We understand the urgency we have now. Now it’s time for real football and to be on our ‘A’ games.”